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TAKING A HIT: This cinema in the northern industrial city of Ludhiana was hit by an explosion at 8.30pm on Sunday. Police believe that a bomb was rigged under a front-row seat. -- PHOTO: AFP
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NEW DELHI - A BLAST ripped through a packed cinema hall in Punjab on Sunday, killing seven people and triggering fears of a revival of a Sikh secessionist insurgency in the northern state.
Around 600 people - mainly migrant workers - were watching romance movie Together Through Several Lifetimes when a bomb, believed to have been left under a front-row seat, exploded at 8.30pm.
The blast left a big crater and smashed the windows of the cinema in the prosperous industrial city of Ludhiana.
Police said 40 people were injured. A forensic examination is being carried out.
Eyewitness Ram Avatar, who escaped the blast as he had gone to the toilet at the time, said people were running for safety as thick smoke billowed through the cinema.
'The bomb exploded just after the interval, maybe five to 10 minutes after the break,' he said. 'There was chaos and confusion.'
The area around the cinema is home to a large Muslim population, and the blast coincided with Hari Raya, marking the end of the Ramadan fasting month.
The attack came three days after an explosion ripped through a famous Sufi Muslim shrine in neighbouring Rajasthan, and has revived fears that a Sikh insurgency, put down in the state in the 1980s, is again taking hold.
Although no one has claimed responsibility for the cinema blast, former Punjab police chief K.P.S. Gill, credited with putting down the insurgency previously, said he suspected that Sikh separatist groups Babbar Khalsa International and the Khalistan Zindabad Force were involved.
Director-General of Police N.P.S. Aulakh also said the involvement of Babbar Khalsa could not be ruled out.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said Punjabis would not accept a return of terrrorism.
'People would not allow the hard-earned peace to go,' he told reporters. 'People of Punjab have no sympathy with terrorists as they have gone through the worst of days. There are no chances of a revival of terrorism.'
Meanwhile, officials say a Bangladesh-based terrorist group is suspected of being behind the shrine blast.
'The investigation is going as far as our borders,' federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM REUTERS
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