High alert in Delhi after bomb attacks

Police officers and cinema goers look at the damage to the interior of the Liberty Cinema Hall in New Delhi Sunday after a series of bombs exploded at cinema halls in the Indian capital. A series of blasts rocked two cinema halls in the Indian capital leaving one dead and dozens of others injured. PHOTO: AFP

As police hunted the bombers, a small blast yesterday wounded one person in Delhi, where Sikh separatists carried out a wave of bombings in the 1980s.

No group has claimed responsibility for Sunday's blasts that killed one person and wounded dozens.

Police erected temporary barricades on Delhi's roads and put railway stations and airports on alert, but said there was no reason for panic.

Many theatres across the country pulled the film as Manmohan Singh, India's first Sikh prime minister, visited victims in hospital early on Monday.

The blasts, which ripped through cinemas packed with weekend crowds, occurred on the first anniversary of Singh's government.

The theatres were showing a film called "Jo Bole So Nihal", the title of which is part of a Sikh religious and battle cry that translates as "Blessed is the one who says God is eternal".

Some Sikhs had taken offence at the title of the Hindi film and to some scenes that showed characters entering Sikh temples without removing their shoes or covering their heads -- considered sacrilege.

Analysts said violence was unlikely to escalate but security agencies would have to be on guard.

"If you have a cocktail of religion and ... violence you have to quarantine it quickly," C. Uday Bhaskar, head of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, told Reuters.