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BANGALORE, India (AFP) — India’s high-technology capital Bangalore was hit by a string of five suspected bomb blasts Friday with at least one person killed and several wounded, police said.

“One woman died and four were injured in the first blast,” Bangalore police commissioner Shankar Bidri told reporters, adding the total amount of explosive used in the bombs was “equivalent to one or two hand grenades.”

“We suspect that timer devices were used in two or three explosive devices, while the other two could have been set off using mobile phones,” he said.

All the five explosions took place within a radius of 10 to 15 kilometres (six to nine miles), he said.

Assistant police commissioner A. Raghuveer said a total of five bombs went off in different parts of the city, the hub of India’s outsourcing and software industry and the Indian base of many global technology firms.

One blast was in the business district, while the others were in the southern suburbs of the religiously mixed and cosmopolitan city, which is the capital of Karnataka state, police said.

“Five blasts took place between 2:00 and 2:45 pm across the city. Initial reports say that some of the blasts are low intensity using gelatin (gelignite explosive) sticks,” he told reporters.

Indian news reports said as many as three people had died.

“We are looking at the pattern of the explosions, and are trying to work out who is behind them and why. We hope to find out very soon,” a federal Intelligence Bureau official told AFP.

Bangalore is home to more than six million people and some 1,500 domestic and foreign firms — including Infosys Technologies, the pioneer of India’s outsourcing sector.

The city has been relatively free of the militant attacks that have plagued other parts of the country, although one person was killed and four wounded in an Islamist attack at a premier science institute in the city in December 2005.

Tags: bangalore blasts, bangalore bomb, bomb blast, bomblast in bangalore

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