Latest Celebrity News | Celebrity Gossip | Entertainment News

Blast rips through Israeli Embassy car in Delhi


Monday's attempted assassination of an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi â€" and Tel Aviv's reflexive indictment of Tehran for the incident â€" threatens to put India bang in the middle of escalating tensions in West Asia and raises new fears about its vulnerability to international terrorism.

Tal Yehoshua Koren, an embassy official who is also the wife of Israel's defence attaché, sustained serious injuries when a bomb fixed to her Innova car went off at 3.15 p.m., less than 500 metres from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's official residence. Ms. Koren was on her way to pick up her children from school.

The diplomat, who was travelling on the back seat, sustained serious injuries as the blast ripped through the vehicle's metal body. Her driver, Manoj Sharma, lost control of the car after the explosion, and was injured when it crashed into a road divider. Delhi residents Manjeet Singh and Arun Sharma, who were driving behind the van, were also injured.

Eyewitnesses said the injured diplomat and her driver were evacuated by passers-by. “People rushed to the car,” said bystander Ravi Singh. “An Air Force fire truck later doused the flames.”

Delhi Police Commissioner B.K. Gupta said eyewitnesses confirmed that “a device had been affixed to the vehicle by a motorcyclist” who passed the car. Police sources told The Hindu that they were sifting through high-resolution images obtained from closed-circuit cameras installed in the area.

Also on Monday, police in Tbilisi, Georgia, defused an identical magnetic explosive device shortly before the attack. Interestingly, similar devices have been used to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists in attacks in Tehran last year â€" attacks western media have attributed to Israel's secret service, Mossad.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com