(AP)
Updated: 2007-08-26 15:42

Medics treat a person injured in a bomb blast at a hospital near Lumbini Park in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad August 25, 2007. [Reuters]

Hyderabad has a history of Hindu-Muslim violence, and Reddy praised residents for their restraint in the wake of Saturday's attacks.

Both the restaurant and the park were popular with Hindus and Muslims.

The restaurant was destroyed by the bomb placed at the entrance, and most of the deaths reportedly occurred in the blast. Blood-covered tin plates and broken glasses littered the road outside.

The other blast struck a laser show at an auditorium in Lumbini park, leaving pools of blood and dead bodies between rows of seats punctured by shrapnel. Some seats were hurled 30 meters (100 feet) away.

By Sunday morning, the death toll had risen to 42 as victims succumbed to injuries sustained in the attacks, said K. Jana Reddy, the state home minister. Some 50 people were wounded in the two blasts.

Two other bombs were defused in the city Saturday, one under a footbridge in the busy Bilsukh Nagar commercial area, and another in a movie theater in the Narayanguba neighborhood, a police official said. Late-night movie showings were canceled across the city.

Much of India's Hindu-Muslim animosity is rooted in disputes over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, divided between India and mostly Muslim Pakistan but claimed in its entirety by both countries. More than a dozen Islamic insurgent groups are fighting for Kashmir's independence or its merger with Pakistan.

More than 80 percent of India's 1.1 billion people are Hindu and 13 percent are Muslim. But in Hyderabad, Muslims make up 40 percent of the population of 7 million.

Little progress has been made in the investigation into the May mosque bombing. Underlying the divide, Muslim leaders have said they do not trust local police to handle the investigation into the attack.

A series of terrorist bombings have ripped across India in the past two years. In July 2006, bombs in seven Mumbai commuter trains killed more than 200 people, attacks blamed on Pakistan-based Muslim militants.

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