India experienced another terrorist attack on Wednesday when multiple low-intensity explosions occurred in Pune, a major city in Maharashtra state, close to the capital city of Mumabi. Pune suffered a major terrorist attack in February 2010.
Fortunately, the four small bombs (a fifth one was reportedly defused) did not result in any deaths, albeit two people sustained injuries. The perpetrators placed the explosives all within a kilometer of each other and set them to go off during rush-hour traffic.
Notably, one of the bombs was placed near a theatre that the newly appointed home minister (former power minister) Sushil Kumar Shinde was scheduled to attend around the time of the blasts. Shinde had thankfully canceled his appointment earlier in the day. At the time of this writing it is unknown whether this cancellation was related to a perceived security threat.
These attacks come at a time when Indo-Pakistani relations have been steadily improving. Indeed earlier on Wednesday New Delhi officially announced the passage of a law allowing Pakistani citizens and businesses to invest in India. The new law aims to facilitate greater economic integration between the long-standing adversaries.
A terror attack like the one in Pune, however, could disrupt the favorable trends of the last few months, were Pakistani involvement discovered. At this early stage in the investigation, there is no evidence to suggest Islamabad played any role in the attack.
Instead reports suggesting the explosives were made from ammonium nitrate indicate that the Indian Mujahideen (IM) was behind the attack. IM has used the same fertilizer in a number of recent attacks on India. This led the Indian government to ban the open sale of ammonium nitrate last week.