KATHMANDU (AFP) — Nepalese police searched for clues and stepped up security in Kathmandu on Sunday after a bomb blast inside a church killed two people and injured 14 others.
Two women, including a teenage girl, died when the explosion went off on Saturday in a packed Roman Catholic church on the outskirts of the capital.
"The investigation is underway and security is on high alert," Kedar Man Singh Bhandari, superintendent of police, told AFP.
He said that a woman was suspected of planting the bomb, which was claimed by a Hindu fundamentalist group.
"Our preliminary investigation shows that an unidentified woman left the bag containing the bomb, and it exploded a couple of minutes after she was gone," said Bhandari.
"We believe the attack has been carried out with a motive to disrupt religious harmony."
At the scene, pamphlets from an obscure Hindu extremist group called the National Defence Army were found taking responsibility for the blast.
The same group, which says it is fighting to restore the nation's Hindu monarchy that was abolished in 2008, previously claimed responsibility for the killing of a missionary in eastern Nepal last July.
Nepal's newly elected prime minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal, visited the church and met with injured people in hospital.
"The attack was highly deplorable. Investigations are going on and the guilty will be brought to book," he told reporters.
The church organised joint prayers on Sunday for Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims.
"We are holding a mass prayer to show our solidarity and religious tolerance," Silas Bogati, the senior priest at the church, told AFP.
"The attack has created psychological fear among Christians. Some armed groups are trying to disturb religious harmony in Nepal but they will never be successful."
There is little history of religious conflict in Nepal, where more than 80 percent of the 27 million people are Hindu.
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