A pair of bombings tore through crowded public areas in the southern city of Hyderabad on Saturday night, including one of the city's most popular family restaurants, killing at least 30 people and wounding about 50, officials said, according to AP. Security forces were put on alert and thousands of police and paramilitary Rapid Action Force officers were deployed across the city, which has long been plagued by Hindu-Muslim tensions and occasional violence between the two communities. The blasts _ one in a park during a laser show, and one in the crowded restaurant _ went off minutes apart, officials said. A third bomb was found under a footbridge and defused in the city's busy Bilsukh Nagar commercial area, a police official said on condition of anonymity. «This is a terrorist act,» Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the chief minister for Andhra Pradesh state, where Hyderabad is located, told reporters, urging people to remain calm. K. Jana Reddy, the state home minister, said at least 30 people had been killed _ at least 24 in the restaurant, Gokul Chat, in the city's Kothi market, and at least six more at the laser show in Lumbini park. About 50 people were injured, he said. Both spots are popular with both Hindus and Muslims. The restaurant was completely destroyed by the bomb, which had been placed at the entrance. Hours afterward, blood-covered tin plates and broken glasses littered the road outside. At the arena where the show was held, large pools of blood and dead bodies could be seen lying between rows of seats punctured by shrapnel. Some seats were hurled 30 meters (100 feet) away by the force of the bomb. Police officers with flashlights and sniffer dogs were searching under chairs looking for more explosive devices. «We heard the blast and people started running out past us. Many of them had blood streaming off them,» said P.K. Verghese, the security manager at the laser show. «It was complete chaos. We had to remove the security barriers so people could get out.»
