NEW DELHI, Feb 21: At least 11 people were killed and scores injured in two blasts in India’s Hyderabad city on Thursday night, police said. Unconfirmed reports said there was a third blast too.

“It appears to be a terrorist attack, though we have not yet got full information of the incident. At least 10 are dead,” DGP V. Dinesh Reddy told The Hindu.

Intelligence reports had cautioned the government about the possibility of the blasts, local news agencies said. It was not immediately clear if the attacks were being linked to the recent execution of a Kashmiri man who was convicted of plotting the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.

Several similar blasts across India, including in Hyderabad, however, have been officially blamed on Hindu groups who are believed to carry out false flag attacks to pin the blame on Muslims.

Mr Reddy who attended a meeting on Internal Security in Delhi returned to Hyderabad and was on his way from the airport to the blast site. “One blast was in Hyderabad commissionerate area and another in Cyberabad area around Dilsukhnagar,” Mr Reddy said.

Dilsukhnagar is an area which is on the border of the two commissionerates.

Local Muslim and Hindu leaders, usually at loggerheads with each other, appealed for calm.

Meanwhile, a team of forensic experts of the NSG, the country’s premier counter-terror force, was on Thursday night flown to Hyderabad in the aftermath of the serial blasts.

The ‘post-blasts’ analysis team have been sent to Hyderabad, sources said, adding experts from the Chennai hub of the ‘blackcat’ commandos force have also been rushed to the Andhra Pradesh capital.

The blasts took place during the peak hour outside a roadside eatery near Konark cinema theatre in the locality resulting in a stampede-like situation with people trying to run for safety.

The injured were rushed to various hospitals by ambulances and police and bomb disposal squads swung into action and began searches.

Official sources said 11 people were killed in the series of explosions which hit the area in quick intervals. At least 50 people were also injured, they said.

(According to AFP news agency, however, 20 people were killed and more than 50 injured in the two blasts that ripped through the crowded neighbourhoods.)

The first blast occurred at about 7pm and the second five minutes later. Unconfirmed reports said it was followed by a third explosion after a gap of 15 minutes.