Blasts at Indian courthouses kill 16

A series of near-simultaneous explosions ripped through courthouse complexes Friday in three north Indian cities, killing at least 16 lawyers and injuring dozens of other people, officials said.

Federal authorities blamed militants trying to spark unrest between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority for the blasts in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad, although a legal group noted all the explosions came in a state where lawyers had decided earlier this year not to defend terrorism suspects.

Police released sketches of three male suspects, all of them thought to be in their 20s, based on eyewitness accounts, Vikram Singh, the director general of police told The Associated Press on Saturday.

At least 11 lawyers were killed and 45 people were wounded in three explosions in Varanasi, one of Hinduism's holiest cities, said Mayawati, the top elected official of Uttar Pradesh state, where all three cities are located. She uses only one name.

At least two of the bombs were attached to bicycles, police said.

In Faizabad, a pair of bombs killed five lawyers and wounded about 14 people, Mayawati told reporters in Lucknow, the state capital.

One of the bombs was rigged to a motorcycle, said R.N. Singh, a local police officer. Faizabad is near the town of Ayodhya, where Hindu extremists destroyed the 16th century Babri Mosque in 1992, sparking widespread Hindu-Muslim riots.

There was one explosion in Lucknow but no reports of deaths or injuries there.

Brij Lal, a senior police official, said the police investigation was centered on the new bicycles used in the blast. "Police are trying to locate the shops from where these bicycles were purchased," he said.

Mayawati criticized federal intelligence agencies for failing to anticipate the attacks. "There was no warning to us from the federal government," she said.

The blasts went off less than 15 minutes apart inside court complexes, said Vipin Mishra, spokesman for the Home Ministry of Uttar Pradesh state.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was attending a summit of Commonwealth leaders in Uganda, condemned the blasts and expressed sympathy for the loss of lives.

In New Delhi, the U.S. Embassy also condemned the bombings, saying they were "apparently directed against institutions of law and justice."

"Such acts strengthen the resolve of all well-intentioned people, including India's friends in the international community, to defeat terror and build peace based on the rule of law," the embassy said in a statement.

B.K. Saksena, a lawyer in Lucknow who escaped unhurt, said proceedings were halted for the day after the explosion there.

"It was lunchtime and most lawyers were standing outside (the courtrooms). When the explosion happened, there was utter panic and people were running everywhere," Saksena said.

Indian court complexes are crowded, chaotic places, with lawyers often setting up small outdoor "offices" in makeshift, open-walled shacks built in courtyards.

"It's a conspiracy. ... This is the handiwork of some group that wants to disturb communal harmony in the country," the junior federal home minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal, told reporters. "They may have targeted the courts because large crowds gather in courthouses here."

But Padam Kriti, a spokesman of the Uttar Pradesh Bar Association, said the state's lawyers had decided earlier this year not to defend any terror suspects, adding "it looks like" that decision may have been behind blasts.

A series of terrorist bombings have ripped across India in the past two years. In August, a pair of explosions killed 43 people in the southern city of Hyderabad. In July 2006, bombs in seven Mumbai commuter trains killed more than 200 people.

Lal Krishna Advani, the leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, said in Parliament that "the attacks were an intelligence failure."