The International Herald is reporting of a terrorist bomb attack in one of India’s cities. I am sure that the Indian government will be seeking the assisatnce of the US to help stop this problem. How long until we see US Troops in India carrying out covert operations alongside Indian personell, all part of the civil nuclear programme agreed with Bush last week?

 In what the police called “a terrorist attack,” a series of apparently coordinated explosions in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi on Tuesday evening killed at least 15 people and wounded 101, raising the familiar specter of sectarian violence in India.

The first blast came as devotees gathered for the evening prayer at the 16th-century temple called Sankat Mochan and known as the “Liberator of Troubles.” Tuesdays are particularly busy days at the temple, when special services are held for the Hindu monkey deity, called Hanuman, a symbol of strength, humility and courage.

The second blast went off at the city’s main train station. Unexploded bombs were also found across Varanasi, formerly known as Benares, including in the packed maze in the oldest quarters of the 2,500-year-old city.

Varanasi has a Hindu majority, but also a large concentration of Muslims.

Police officials said they were on high alert, as a Hindu nationalist group and a statewide political party called for a strike Wednesday.

“We suspect it is a terrorist act,” Yashpal Singh, director general of city police, said by telephone. “We are high alert for tomorrow.”

Singh said there were no clues yet signaling the cause of the blasts. But he pointed out that the attack came a week before the Hindu rite of spring, Holi, just as the bombs that went off in New Delhi on Oct. 29 and killed more than 60 people preceded the last major Hindu holiday of Diwali.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the attack and immediately called for calm.

The government placed several houses of worship across the country on a heightened security alert. Television news stations took pains to tell viewers that no idols had been damaged by the blasts. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks.

“I cannot say which outfit was responsible for the ghastly attack,” the home secretary, V.K. Duggal, told reporters. “But since one of the places of attack is a temple, it has a potential of creating suspicion and tension among different communities.”

Varanasi, 700 kilometers, or 450 miles, southeast of New Delhi, is among the oldest cities in the world and the most sacred in Hindu cosmology, symbolically as important and emotive as Jerusalem.

Varanasi is also part of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, which is facing elections later this year. On Friday, Lucknow, another city in Uttar Pradesh state, saw violence as three people died in a protest against the visit to India of President George W. Bush.

The Sankat Mochan temple is said to have been created when a 16th-century poet, Tulsidas, established an image of Hanuman under a tree, according to Diana Eck, a professor of religion at Harvard and a scholar of Hinduism. It has since become one of the most vibrant and visited temples in the city.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting for this article.

NEW DELHI In what the police called “a terrorist attack,” a series of apparently coordinated explosions in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi on Tuesday evening killed at least 15 people and wounded 101, raising the familiar specter of sectarian violence in India.

The first blast came as devotees gathered for the evening prayer at the 16th-century temple called Sankat Mochan and known as the “Liberator of Troubles.” Tuesdays are particularly busy days at the temple, when special services are held for the Hindu monkey deity, called Hanuman, a symbol of strength, humility and courage.

The second blast went off at the city’s main train station. Unexploded bombs were also found across Varanasi, formerly known as Benares, including in the packed maze in the oldest quarters of the 2,500-year-old city.

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