Bomb Detonated in India Likely Meant for Chabad
A bomb that exploded in a crowded cafe in India was likely meant for the nearby Chabad House, Indian authorities said.
The bomb that detonated Saturday in Pune, India, killed nine people and injured 57. The bakery is located several dozen yards from the city’s Chabad house.
Pune is 125 miles southeast of Mumbai, where in November 2008 a major terrorist attack in the city at several sites simultaneously, including the Chabad house, killed 179 people, with them six Jewish victims at the Jewish center.
Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said Sunday that the Chabad house in Pune had been under surveillance by David Headley, an American of Pakistani descent in prison in Chicago for allegedly scouting out targets for the Mumbai attack.
The Pune bomb that detonated on Saturday evening was left in the café, called the German Bakery, in a shopping bag by terrorists pretending to be customers, according to reports.
Police have speculated that another terrorist was meant to pick up the bag and take it to the nearby Chabad house, Haaretz reported. The bag exploded when a waiter opened it.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
