Three people were killed and 17 injured following a bomb explosion in the city of Arrah, in India’s eastern state of Bihar, local police said Friday.
The blast occurred after a woman carried a bomb into the premises of the Arrah civil court premises Friday morning, according to police officials, Sputnik reported.
The bomb went off while a group of prisoners were being transferred from a bus to the lock-up on court compound. “The investigation is on, but the state of her body points to the suicide theory,” police said in a statement. The explosion killed the woman who carried the bomb, a police officer and a prisoner. Two criminals managed to escape from police custody in the chaos that ensued. A policeman who had been standing extremely close to the explosion was hospitalized, but was later reported dead. Seventeen others were hospitalized with various injuries.
The blast came despite tightened security measures in India ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit on Sunday. Security agencies have been put on a nationwide alert following the gun massacre at a Pakistani school in December 2014.
In the past, militant groups have targeted the ceremonies in disputed Jammu and Kashmir and in the northeastern states. The top interior ministry official in the eastern state of Odisha, Lalit Das, said it was on higher alert following intelligence warnings of an attack in four states that also included Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
