Bodh Gaya Blasts shook hotels near Mahabodhi temple

Bodh Gaya (Bihar), July 7: The hotels close to the Mahabodhi temple complex shook due to the impact of the serial blasts, causing tourists and pilgrims to run out in panic.

A local resident near Mahabodhi temple said the blasts made the hotels, where a number of tourists were staying, shake.

"The blasts made the buildings shake and all the people of the hotels, comprising foreigners and tourists, come out wondering what had happened," a local resident told a TV channel.

Eight successive blasts hit the 1,500-year old Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya Sunday morning in what the government has described as a terror attack.

A Buddhist monk at the shrine said the blasts were deafening.

"Two monks - one from Myanmar and one from Tibet - have been badly injured, one from Tibet and one from Myanmar," the witness told reporters.

Another monk said it is "very unfortunate that security has to be beefed up in a religious place where actually there should be freedom".

IANS