At Least Five Killed After Blast In Northern India

It is clearly an accident. Terrorism has been ruled out.

At least five people were killed after an accidental blast at a city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh when scrap collectors were sifting through a rubbish dump, police said on Saturday.

The blast could have been caused by an unexploded military shell in the city of Meerut. There is a large military base there.

"It is clearly an accident. Terrorism has been ruled out," said Brij Lal, deputy police chief of the state.

A wave of bomb attacks has hit India in recent months, killing more than 200 people. Police have blamed most of those attacks on Muslim militants, although some Hindu militants have also been suspected of carrying out several attacks.