Five Injured as The Blasts Rattle Cricket Fans in Bangalore's Chinnaswamy Stadium During IPL Match

NEW DELHI — Two small bombs exploded Saturday outside a cricket stadium in southern India shortly before a match was about to start, police said, injuring 10 people and setting off panic among fans.

Bangalore's Chinnaswamy Stadium hosted the game between the home team, the Bangalore Royal Challengers, and the Mumbai Indians, part of the popular Indian Premier League tournament.

The city police commissioner said four officers and a security guard were among the wounded. The guard's injuries were serious.

"It appears that some explosives may have been hidden in the wall" next to a gate leading to the stadium, said Shankar Bidari, whose comments were broadcast on several news channels. "The explosives weren't powerful."

Initial investigations showed the explosives were locally made and of low intensity, M.R. Poojar, a deputy police commissioner said.

The game started to a packed stadium an hour behind schedule. Poojar said security around the stadium had been increased.

The U.S. State Department had issued a travel advisory Friday warning that the government "continues to receive information that terrorist groups may be planning attacks in India." The explosions in Bangalore came two months after 17 people were killed when a bomb hidden inside a backpack detonated at a restaurant in the city of Pune.

Indian authorities are investigating whether the Pune bombing was the work of domestic terrorists linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terrorist organization. A splinter group of Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility for that attack.

The Bangalore attack, like the one in Pune, may complicate efforts by India and Pakistan to resume diplomacy. India cut off diplomatic relations after the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, also known as Bombay, that left at least 163 people dead. But the two countries have been trying to restart talks, and the foreign secretaries of both countries met in New Delhi shortly after the Pune bombing.

Sports venues in India have faced tight security amid fears Islamist radical groups may target them.

Neighboring Pakistan, which sees near-daily bombings from militants, has been off-limits to foreign cricket teams since gunmen attacked the Sri Lanka team's bus in Lahore last year, killing six police officers and the van's driver.