Several injured in Bangalore blast Sixteen people were injured on Wednesday in a blast in the Indian city of Bangalore apparently caused by an improvised explosive device, police said. The explosion, near an office of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist party that is the main opponent of the Congress-led Indian government, caused vehicles nearby to burst into flames. Bangalore, a centre for information technology and outsourcing companies, is capital of Karnataka state, where a state election is to be held on May 5. "It seems to be an explosive plus an incendiary bomb," said Raghvendra Auradkar, Bangalore police commissioner. R. Ashok, the state's home minister, said: "I appeal to people to remain calm and not to panic." Twin blasts at the end of a marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, on Monday killed three people and injured more than 170. President Barack Obama called that attack an act of "terror." Commenting on the blast in Bangalore, Indian officials did not rule out an Islamist terror attack but said they had yet to identify the perpetrator. In 2008, 10 gunmen apparently sent by the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group attacked three five-star hotels in Mumbai as well as the main railway station, a café and a Jewish centre, killing 166 people. Pakistani Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving gunman, was hanged for that attack last November. After Wednesday's Bangalore explosion, Shakeel Ahmad, a Congress party spokesman, tweeted that if the blast was a terror attack "it will certainly help the BJP politically on the eve of election." The BJP called his remark "insensitive and inhumane."