Hospital Blast Injures at Least 3 in India

A suspected bomb exploded at a hospital in the northern Indian city of Agra on Saturday injuring several people, witnesses said, though no deaths were immediately reported.

The blast came less than two weeks after a powerful bomb in a briefcase ripped through a crowd outside New Delhi's High Court, killing 15 people and wounding dozens of others, many of them waiting for legal hearings.

Police inspector-general P.K. Tiwari said preliminary investigations suggested the explosion was caused by a crude bomb placed under a seat in the reception area of the hospital, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

"The blast took place in the reception where explosives were kept under a chair," Tiwari was quoted as saying, adding it was too early to say if it was a "terror attack."

"I heard a bang sound and when I turned there were splinters of glass lying around and I saw three people injured," a witness told Agence France Presse, declining to give his name.

The Press Trust of India reported that six people had been injured in the blast.

A team from the police anti-terror squad had been sent to the hospital, Additional Director General of Police Brij Lal told the Press Trust of India.

Agra, 200 kilometers from the Indian capital New Delhi, is home to the Taj Mahal, India's famed "monument to love," which draws almost three million domestic and foreign tourists annually.

The Agra blast came a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke of the "uncertain" security situation in India following a string of bombings.

"The security environment in the country continues to be uncertain," Singh told a gathering of senior police officers from around the country on Friday.

The prime minister said recent bomb blasts in Mumbai and New Delhi were "grim reminders of the grave challenges posed by terrorism" and stressed the urgent need to improve intelligence gathering.

"The grassroots information and intelligence collection systems that have traditionally been a part of policing have languished or fallen into disuse in some places," he said.

In the New Delhi blast on September 7, the device was placed near an entrance gate reception area, where more than 100 people were queuing for passes to the court complex, located in the heart of the Indian capital.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack in New Delhi or the rush-explosions that rocked Mumbai's packed gold and jewelry quarter on July 13, killing 27 people.

The Mumbai attacks were the first in the city since the deadly, high-profile November 2008 strike by Islamist militants that left 166 dead and more than 300 others injured.