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Mississauga : Police stand outside the Bombay Bhel restaurant in Mississauga, Canada Friday May 25, 2018. Canadian police say an explosion set off deliberately in a restaurant has wounded a number of people. AP/PTI(AP5_25_2018_000102B)[/caption]
Mississauga (Canada), May 25 (IANS): Canadian police were using every resource to capture the two men responsible for a “horrendous” bomb attack on an Indian restaurant during birthday celebrations in this Toronto suburb that injured 15 people, regional police chief Jennifer Evans said on Friday.
While the investigation was in the early stages, there were no indications so far that the Thursday night attack at Bombay Bhel restaurant with an improvised explosive device (IED) was a terrorist or a hate crime, she said at a news conference near the restaurant.
“But we have not ruled out anything,” she added.
Two birthday celebrations were taking place at the restaurant at the time of the attack, but fortunately no child was hurt, she said.
Mississauga has a South Asian population of about 175,000 or nearly 20 per cent of its population.
Evans described one attacker as “light-skinned” in his mid-20s and the other as “fair-skinned” and said both had the hood of their jackets pulled over their heads, wore baseball caps and had dark cloth covering their faces.
Police across the Greater Toronto Area and the federal agency, the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, were looking for the attackers while an intelligence team was working behind the scene.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted that she was “in constant touch with our Consul General in Toronto and Indian High Commissioner in Canada”.
“Our missions will work round the clock,” she added.
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, who was also at the news conference, said she had spoken to Consul-General Dinesh Bhatia.
The other 12 injured, who ranged in age from 23 to 69, were taken to local hospitals and released after treatment.