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11 killed in blast outside Indian HC

’Huji' mail claims responsibility

Star Report
A powerful bomb placed in a briefcase outside the High Court in New Delhi killed at least 11 people and wounded 76 yesterday in an attack authorities said was claimed by a Bangladeshi-affiliated Islamist group.
The blast came at a time when Indian premier Manmohan Singh is currently on an official visit to Bangladesh.
The outlawed Harkatul-Jihad al Islami (Huji) militant group, with bases in Bangladesh and Pakistan, had sent an email claiming responsibility, Indian
authorities said.
“That mail has to be looked at very seriously because Huji is a very prominent terrorist group among whose targets India is one,” National Investigation Agency (NIA) Chief SC Sinha told reporters.
Asked for a comment on Huji's activities in Bangladesh, Commander M Sohail, a senior Rapid Action Battalion official in Dhaka, told The Daily Star that Huji's strength has greatly been weakened at present than any time in the past because of repeated crackdowns on militants and arrests of almost all Huji leaders.
The Bangladesh government banned Huji and its activities in 2005.
In the email to the NIA, the group also called on India to repeal the death sentence of a man convicted in connection with an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 who was awaiting execution by hanging, reports Reuters.
The bomb dug a crater three to four feet deep near the main reception counter where passes are issued for lawyers and visitors to enter the sandstone building before the main security checkpoint.
“I was near the gate at that time,” said lawyer KK Gautam. “There was an orderly queue when a loud blast occurred. I saw many injured and dead. I saw 20-25 injured and around 10 dead."
Lawyers in black suits and starched white collars stood around shocked on one of the busiest days of the week when the court hears public interest petitions.
About 120 soldiers, police and bomb squad specialists were at the scene, with ambulances whisking the injured away to hospitals.
Television images showed scores of lawyers running from one of the main gates of the building just after the explosion. Police cordoned off the
area, not far from parliament and the prime minister's office.
“I think I saw this guy (suspect). He was in white, aged 34 or 35, carrying a briefcase and jumping the long queue,” a middle-aged man told Indian television channels.
“There must have been some 80 people at that time when the bomb went off. I crouched immediately but the man behind me, he did not and was hit (by shrapnel) to his right arm,” he said.
Two lawyers at the court, Namita Roy, 48, and Hargovina Jah, 40, told Reuters the scanner and metal detector at Gate 5 of the court where the blast occurred were not working.
“This is definitely a big security lapse on the part of the police. For example, yesterday even the (body) scanner was not working. The security, more or less, is very weak, especially in view of the blast that happened a few months ago,” said Roy.
The blast comes as security has been stepped up at key locations as parliament is in session and ahead of the anniversary of the September 11,2001, attacks in the United States.
It also comes less than two months after near-simultaneous triple bomb attacks in India's financial hub Mumbai killed 24.