Canada hunts for restaurant bombers

Three of the 15 people critically injured in blast are of Indian origin

An explosion caused by a homemade bomb ripped through an Indian restaurant where children were present for family parties at a mall in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, wounding 15 people, Canadian police said.

Police said yesterday two suspects with their faces covered to conceal their identities entered the Bombay Bhel restaurant late on Thursday, dropped the improvised explosive device and fled. “There is no indication that this is a terrorism act. There is no indication that this is a hate crime at this time. We haven’t ruled anything out as we start our investigation,” said Peel Regional Police Chief Jennifer Evans.

“Every police resource is being used right now to locate the people responsible for this horrendous act.”

Officials said three IndianCanadians suffered critical injuries and were taken to the hospital while the remaining 12 victims suffered what Evans described as minor and superficial injuries.

Two unidentified men walked into a restaurant on Thursday in the Canadian city of Mississauga and set off a bomb, wounding more than a dozen people, local police said.

The blast went off in the Bombay Bhel restaurant at about 10.30pm local time. Fifteen people were taken to hospital, three of them with critical injuries, the Peel Regional Paramedic Service said in a Tweet.

The two male suspects fled after detonating their improvised explosive device, Peel Regional Police said in a Tweet. No one has claimed responsibility, and the motive for the attack was not known.

The men entered the restaurant and set down what appeared to be a paint can or pail, which exploded after they fled, Sergeant Matt Bertram told the New York Times. The bomb was filled with “projectable objects,” he said.

Suspects

Police posted a photograph on Twitter showing two people with dark zipup hoodies walking into an establishment. One appeared to be carrying an object.

Police said one suspect was in his mid-20s, stocky, and wore dark blue jeans and a dark zip-up hoody pulled over his head, with black cloth covering his face. The second was thin, and wore faded blue jeans, a grey T-shirt and a dark zipup hoody over his head, also with his face covered.

Roads in the area were closed and a large police presence was at the scene, with heavily armed tactical officers arriving as part of the large emergency response. The attack in Mississauga comes a month after a driver ploughed his van into a crowd in Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 15.