Skip to main content

Eight killed in India restaurant blast

Click to play
Terror strikes popular bakery
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW: Explosives packed in bag noticed by waiter, home secretary says
  • NEW: Four of the dead not from India, security official says
  • At least eight people killed and 33 injured in explosion in Pune
  • Shop, known as the German Bakery, is frequented by tourists
RELATED TOPICS
  • India
  • Terrorism

New Delhi, India (CNN) -- An explosion Saturday at an eatery in the western Indian city of Pune killed at least nine people and injured 33 others, authorities said.

"It appears to be a bomb blast, and bombs obviously are related to terrorism," said U.K. Bansal, special secretary for security in India's Interior Ministry.

Four of the dead were not from India, he told CNN.

Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told reporters that the explosives were packed in a bag noticed by a waiter at the popular eatery called the German Bakery. The explosion occurred about 7:30 p.m. local time Saturday.

Rajendra Sonawane, joint police commissioner for the city, said the blast struck the German Bakery in Pune's Koregaon Park, sister network CNN-IBN reported.

Initially, authorities thought a cooking gas cylinder had exploded at the bakery, but all cylinders were accounted for, according to CNN-IBN.

An anti-terrorism squad is assisting in the investigation, Chandra Iyengar, home secretary for Maharashtra state, told CNN. However, he wouldn't confirm the blast as a terrorist attack.

The German Bakery is frequented by tourists. It's near the Osho Ashram, a commune founded by the late Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who returned to India from the United States in the 1980s.

CNN's Harmeet Singh contributed to this report.