Police imposed a daylong curfew in the western Indian city of Jaipur yesterday to prevent any retaliatory violence after a series of blasts in crowded areas left at least 80 people dead.

Authorities suspect Islamic militants were behind the blasts, and they moved quickly to stop any potential clashes between the city's Hindu majority and its sizable Muslim minority. Police were deployed in force and people kept off the streets of Jaipur's old walled city, where all seven bombs went off on Tuesday.

The bombers may have been aiming "to create communal tension," said Vasundhara Raje, the chief minister of Rajasthan state, of which Jaipur is the capital. "But there is peace in the city. The curfew is a precaution."

With police seemingly everywhere, streets in the old city were largely devoid of pedestrians, and shops throughout the rest of Jaipur were also shuttered.

"Neither the Hindus or the Muslims here want to fight," said Mohiuddin Qureshi, a gemstone trader who works in a market that was bombed.

"Our lives are together, our businesses are together. This is the work of outsiders," said Qureshi, who went to 10 burials yesterday.

Police in Jaipur have so far questioned nearly a dozen people. But no arrests have been made, and Raje told reporters that authorities only "have some slender leads."

Nearly 200 people were wounded in the explosions in the city in western India known for its pink-hued palaces, said A.K. Jain, a top Rajasthan police official. Police said an eighth bomb was found and defused.

Agencies

(China Daily 05/15/2008 page12)