INDIA yesterday blamed Pakistan for a devastating blast which killed 28 people in a New Delhi market, as more than 20 new victims died in a bomb attack on a bus in the northern state of Rajasthan. Meanwhile, Kashmiri separatists admitted responsibility for the New Delhi bomb on Tuesday.
Indian authorities sounded a countrywide security alert following the two bombings and appealed to people to remain vigilant against attacks.
The Rajasthan Home Secretary, Mr Arun Kumar, put at over 20 the number of bus passengers' killed, according to the latest official count, and said 30 others were injured in the blast, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said.
The explosion, which occurred at around 3.00 p.m., killed many passengers instantly, blew the roof off the bus and set the vehicle ablaze, state police and the United News of India news agency said.
The police said at least 10 kilograms (22 lb) of high powered explosives were used in the bombing, triggered by a timer or remote controlled device.
Police said the vehicle was an inter city bus operated by the Rajasthan State Transport Corporation carrying passengers, from the Taj Mahal town of Agra to Bikaner in Rajasthan.
"Many of the injured are in a critical state," a policeman, Mr Ram Kishore, said.
The blast came a day after a car packed with explosives wrecked one of New Delhi's busiest shopping markets on Tuesday evening, killing 28 shoppers and injuring 40 others.
The Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front separatist group admitted responsibility, saying the Lashkar E Sajjad unit - named alter a rebel leader, Sajjad Keno, who was killed by Indian troops in January - had carried out the attack.
A telephone caller, identifying himself as a spokesman for the group, said the explosion was to avenge the killing of Muslim separatists in Kashmir, the cause of two wars between India and Pakistan.
India's new Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, accused Pakistan of masterminding the bomb attack.
Mr Joshi, a hardline Hindu nationalist, said his right wing government was in "possession of unimpeachable evidence" of Pakistan's involvement.
"The government has information that Pakistani agencies had planned to explode the high intensity car bomb in a marketplace and cause several casualties," Mr Joshi said.
He added Islamabad, having failed to sabotage the first elections in seven years in troubled Kashmir "had resorted to attacking soft targets" such as the Central Market in New Delhi.
The Indian Home Secretary, Mr K. Padmanabhiah, also accused Islamabad of master minding Tuesday's explosion.
The blast came shortly after India marked the fifth anniversary of the former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.
Rahul Bedi adds from Srinagar:
Indian security forces have ringed the northern Kashmir valley "where voting for two of four parliamentary seats takes place today.
Official in Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar, said around 200,000 paramilitary, army and police personnel have been deployed in Anantnag and Baramulla constituencies to counter armed Kashmiri separatists who have threatened to disrupt polling.
Leaders of the separatist Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of 30 Kashmiri political, religious and social groups, yesterday opposed the polls, calling them an "armed election".
The mood of voters across Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority state, is surly. After six years of militancy in which over 15,000 people have died, millions have migrated and tourism, Kashmir's economic mainstay, has been ruined, locals are hostile to any talk of elections.