At least 60 dead in Indian blasts
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At least six bombs have exploded in the western Indian city of Jaipur, killing more than 60 people, state officials have said.
At least six bombs, which exploded in markets and near a Hindu temple in Jaipur's crowded walled city also wounded up to 150 people.
Rajasthan state government officials said between 50 and 60 people were killed in the explosions, the deadliest bomb attacks in India in nearly two years.
'According to the information I have received 60 people have died and 150 have been injured,' Rajasthan's Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said.
But the state's police chief gave lower figures. 'Forty-five people have been killed and at least 100 have been injured,' AS Gill, Director General of Police in the state of Rajasthan claimed.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. But India has previously blamed Pakistan-based Islamist militants fighting to end New Delhi's rule of Kashmir for such bombings.
'I heard a deafening noise and I thought it was a gas cylinder blast,' witness Hemanth Modi said. 'There was smoke and I could not find my son. Then I found him.'
Television stations showed images of wrecked bicycles and pools of blood, with sirens blaring in the background. They said the blasts had caused panic in the narrow streets.
'People started running around and I followed them,' Anil Garg said. 'There are huge traffic jams. I am very scared.'
Alerts were also issued in the Indian capital New Delhi and the country's financial capital Mumbai.
'We'll be on high alert,' said sub-inspector Shivaji Vishnu Patil in the Mumbai police control room. Although police are not aware of any specific threat in Mumbai, he said extra armed police would be sent to power stations, prominent mosques and Hindu temples and other potential targets as a normal precaution.
The Foreign Office is 'investigating' whether Britons were caught in the blasts, a spokesman said.
A spokeswoman for UK travel organisation Abta said around 2,000 British tourists would be expected in Jaipur at this time of year.
She said holiday companies with tour groups in the city would pass information to Abta and the Foreign Office as the situation developed.
'At the moment there is quite scant information about it so we are just liaising with the Foreign Office at the moment to provide information from our members.
'Jaipur is a fairly popular place for British tourists.'
In the past few years a string of bomb blasts in Indian cities have killed hundreds of people. The most deadly was an attack on Mumbai's railway system in July 2006, when seven explosions killed more than 180 people.
In August last year, three bombs killed 38 people inside an amusement park and at a street-side food stall in Hyderabad, a city in southern India which is home to a booming outsourcing industry.
In November, nearly simultaneous explosions in three northern Indian cities - Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad - killed at least 13 people.
Cinemas, markets and places of worship have also been targeted in recent years.
