Eleven people have been killed and 50 injured in two bomb explosions which took place within minutes of each other in Hyderabad Thursday. The serial blasts hit the busy Dilsukhnagar area in Hyderabad, which is filled with cinema halls, shops and restaurants, just after 7 pm, police said.

One bomb exploded outside a cinema hall and another at a bus stand. Both bombs were suspected to have been kept on bicycles within about 100-150 m of each other. Witnesses said that there was a stampede-like situation after the blasts as people fled the area.

Reacting to the serial explosions in Hyderabad, Union Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said in Delhi that eight people were killed in the first blast and three in the second, adding that the toll could rise. Shinde also said that the Centre had some intelligence about the possibility of an attack and it had been passed on to the states even though the information was not specific.

Police in Hyderabad said that the victims were being rushed to nearby hospitals and bomb disposal squads had been sent to the area. A NSG team was also being rushed to the city in a BSF aircraft, Union Home secretary R K Singh said. The local unit of the NIA was also reaching the spots, officials added.

The blasts are the first in the country since the four low-intensity serial explosions in the heart of Pune on August 1 last year. Only one man was injured in those crude bomb blasts.

Hyderabad was last targeted on August 25, 2007, when two near-simultaneous explosions killed 42 people and injured more than 50. Those explosions took place at Lumbini amusement park and Gokul Chat Bhandar.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the blasts and said those behind the dastardly act would not go unpunished. He appealed for peace and calm in the aftermath of the attack and announced that the families of those killed would be paid Rs 2 lakh and the injured would get Rs 50,000.

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