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28 March 2024

Blast survivor was wounded again in India attack

Published
By AFP

A man injured in Thursday's twin blasts that killed at least 14 people in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad had lost his leg in an earlier attack on the city, his father said Friday.

Abdul Wasif Mirza, a 25-year-old clothes hawker, was badly hurt in 2007 when a bomb exploded at a city mosque, according to local media reports.

"I had no hope he would survive but God was kind and the doctors provided very good treatment and his life was saved," his father Shahid Mirza told reporters on Friday.

"Now, three to four years later -- after he was able to be normal again -- this incident has happened," Mirza said.

The near-simultaneous attacks in a bustling shopping area Thursday evening killed at least 14 people and wounded scores of others, according to the government.

They were the first deadly bomb attacks in India since 2011.

Doctors told local media that Mirza's latest injuries were likely to cause severe damage to his spinal cord.

Hindus form the majority of the population in Hyderabad, one of India's largest and most historic cities which also has a substantial high-tech industry. But there is also a sizeable Muslim community, many living in the old quarter.

In May 2007 at least 11 people were killed in the attack on the Mecca Masjid mosque in Hyderabad and five more died when police fired at Muslim protesters.

In August the same year at least 40 people were killed in the city when two blasts ripped through an auditorium and an outdoor restaurant.