Bomb kills 8, wounds 42 in bakery

February 14, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

NEW DELHI (AP) — An apparent bomb tore through a crowded bakery popular with foreigners Saturday in western India, killing eight people and wounding 42 near a famed meditation center. If confirmed, it would be the country’s first terror attack since the Mumbai rampage in 2008.

The blast in the city of Pune, 125 miles southeast of Mumbai, threatened to damage new efforts to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan, with Hindu nationalist leaders already placing the blame for the explosion at India’s Muslim neighbor.

Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said the 7:30 p.m. explosion at the German Bakery, near the Osho Ashram, a renowned meditation center, was likely caused by a bomb.

“It appears that an unattended package was noticed in the bakery by one of the waiters who apparently attempted to open the package when the blast took place,” Pillai told reporters.

The building and nearby shops were badly damaged and splattered with thick patches of blood and several limbs.

“I came running to the bakery after hearing the explosion. I found people lying all over the place,” said Abba More, who lives nearby.

One foreigner was among those killed and another was injured in the blast, he said, adding that their nationalities were not immediately known.

Harsh Vardhan Patil, a state minister, said 42 people have been hospitalized with injuries, six of them in critical condition.

Many of the bakery’s customers are foreign travelers who visit the ashram.

India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the blast in Pune was potentially the most “significant terrorist incident” since the Mumbai attacks.

“All the information available to us at the moment points to a plot to explode a device in a place that is frequented by foreigners as well as Indians,” he told the Press Trust of India news agency.

He said the government was waiting for the findings of forensic experts before drawing any conclusions.