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Pak reels under third blast in three days, government blames RAW

A bomb tore apart a jewellery store in eastern Punjab province today, injuring 20 people, several of them seriously, police officials said.

The explosion was the third to shatter Pakistan since last Friday, when a bomb exploded in a theatre in the eastern city of Lahore, killing three people.

Yesterday, a powerful bomb ripped through a train in southern Sindh province, killing 26 people and injuring 45 others.

No one has taken responsibility for today's explosion in Khanewal, in the heart of Punjab province, some 550 km south of the capital.

The injured were in the jewellery store or walking past at the time of the explosion, the police said.

There was no immediate comment from the government about the blast.

Yesterday, following a bomb-blast in a train yesterday, the government accused India's intelligence service of responsibility. India dismissed the charge as "preposterous.''

The train was passing through a village 30 km outside Sukkur, some 200 km north of Karachi, capital of the southern Sindh province, when the bomb shattered the train just before dawn, the police said.

Information Minister Mushahid Hussain said evidence has been found linking India's Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, to a spate of bombings.

India is trying to "destabilise Pakistan through acts of terrorism,'' said Hussein in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

Linking the attack to the heightened nuclear tensions in the region, Hussain said India "wants to divert attention from its own domestic frustrations because its nuclear explosion backfired.''

He said a suspect had been captured in connection with the bombing on Friday of a theatre that killed three people in Lahore, capital of Punjab province.

Another alleged RAW agent had been captured and confessed to being involved in ten bomb blasts within nine weeks earlier this year, said a statement from Hussain's office.

Earlier, the government said it had received intelligence information that Indian secret service agents would try to infiltrate into Pakistan to conduct terrorist acts between June 5 and 7.

UNI

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