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Deadly blasts rock Indian cities

  • Story Highlights
  • Series of simultaneous blasts set off outside courts in Uttar Pradesh
  • Blasts detonated in the cities of Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad
  • Blasts reportedly kill 8 people, although AP say up to 13 may have perished
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NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Blasts outside courts in three northern Indian cities on Friday, have killed at least eight people, CNN-IBN TV has reported.

Onlookers outside the civil court in Varanasi stand around the site of one of the blasts.

The near-simultaneous blasts detonated in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad, all in Uttar Pradesh state. The Associated Press reported officials saying as many as 13 people had died, all lawyers.

Citing information supplied by authorities, CNN-IBN reported five killed outside courts in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi, where there were two blasts. The agency said that at least nine people had perished, quoting Mayawati, the foremost elected official in Uttar Pradesh state.

CNN-IBN reported three were killed outside a Faizabad criminal court with a bicycle being used in that incident. There was no one killed in a blast outside civil courts in Lucknow, the state capital, according to IBN. Video Watch video of the blast aftermath. »

According to a report from the Associated Press, the blasts may have been targeted at lawyers who were among the dead and wounded in the blasts at the court complexes.

The AP report cited Brij Lal, a top official in Uttar Pradesh, that at least two of those bombs were attached to bicycles, police said.

In Faizabad, a pair of bombs killed three lawyers and injured 10 to 12 more, said Lal. One of the bombs was rigged to a motorcycle, said R.N. Singh, a local police officer. AP put the dead at four, again quoting Mayawati.

Lal told AP that at least 40 people were believed to have been injured, most of them lawyers.

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In August, at least 44 people were killed and scores were wounded in bombings in the southern city of Hyderabad.

Those were described as terror attacks carried out by Islamic militants. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

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