NEW DELHI – The Japanese embassy has received an e-mail warning of a bomb planted at a market in India's capital, and has warned its citizens to stay away from crowded public places, a notice posted on its Web site Thursday said.
The warning comes just days after 29 explosions shook two Indian cities, killing at least 43 people and wounding scores. An e-mail warning preceded most of those bombings.
Another 19 unexploded bombs have since been found in a western Indian city.
Japan's embassy said it had received an e-mail warning of a bomb planted in the capital's popular Sarojini Nagar market, one of three New Delhi markets bombed in October 2005. Those blasts killed 62 people.
The embassy's notice did not say exactly when the warning was received.
It urged Japanese citizens to avoid public places, including markets such as Sarojini Nagar, bus stops and religious institutions. The embassy was temporarily closing its consular services and would not be accepting visa applications.
There were no reports of bomb threats being received by other foreign missions in India.
On Saturday, 22 explosions tore through the city of Ahmadabad in western India, killing 42 people and wounding 183 a day after seven blasts shook the southern city of Bangalore, leaving one person dead.
An obscure Islamic militant group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen took credit for the Ahmadabad attack in an e-mail sent minutes before the blasts.
Those explosions put India on high alert, and fears of more attacks were raised by the discovery on Tuesday and Wednesday of 19 unexploded bombs in the diamond-polishing hub of Surat, also in western India.
India has been plagued by bombings in recent years.
Almost all have been blamed on Islamic militants who allegedly want to provoke violence between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority, although officials rarely offer hard evidence implicating specific groups.
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