Twin blasts rock Agra, no casualties
At least two blasts were reported on Saturday near the Cantonment railway station in Agra but there were no reports of any major damage or casualty.
Locals said the first blast took place at 5am at the house of Ashok, who works as a plumber, in Rasoolpura area near the Cantonment railway station.
Another blast was reported 45 minutes after the first one from an area where garbage is disposed near platform no 5 of the station, Anwar Usmani, a resident of Rasoolpur Khwas Pura, said.
Director general of police Mahesh Kumar Mishra said no major damage had been caused but investigation was underway in the wake of recent threats and incidents in Agra.
“Both the blasts were followed by smoke. A team of forensic experts and a bomb disposal squad was called to inspect the spot,” said Mishra. The blasts have come after reports of an attempt to derail the Andaman Express on Friday night.
Agra is already on high alert after a pro-islamic State media group warned of attacks in India and published a graphic depicting the Taj Mahal as a possible target. The graphic posted on a channel of encrypted communication app Telegram , according to Site Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadi activity on the web.
A US grand jury indicted a man on Thursday for hate crime charges for attacking an Indian-descent man at a bar in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, just days after the November 8 presidential election mistaking him for Muslim from the Middle East.
“Things are different now … I don’t want you sitting next to me, you people,” the accused Jeffrey Allen Burgess, told the victim Ankur Mehta, according to Penn Live, a local news site before assaulting him.
The incident took place on November 22, not long after the election of President Donald Trump when the US was hit by a wave of hate crimes against minorities such as Hispanics African Americans and Jewish people. In the days since, there have been more attacks on Indians mistaken for Middle-easterners.
The worst of them took place in Olathe, Kansas, when engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was fatally shot and his friend was wounded, also at a bar.
In the November 22 incident Burgess began by hurling ethnic slurs at Mehta who was on his electronic device and had his headphones on.
The police said Burgess then “launched an unprovoked attack on the victim”. Witnesses have told police the accused had held Mehta by the head and punched him, according to a local report.
Mehta was taken to a hospital with a loose tooth and a cut to his upper lip.
The police said Burgess was arrested on suspicion of ethnic intimidation, simple assault harassment and public drunkenness.
The US attorney’s office for the western district of Pennsylvania announced on Thursday the grand jury’s indictment of Burgess. Before a court appearance, Burgess is reported to have blamed alcohol for the incident. “I’m not that kind of person ... It happened and I’m remorseful about it,” he said.
If convicted, Burgess, 54 faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison or a $250,000 fine or both.
THE BLASTS HAVE COME AFTER REPORTS OF AN ATTEMPT TO DERAIL THE ANDAMAN EXPRESS ON FRIDAY NIGHT