<\/p>\n
At least one person was killed and several were injured in a series of explosions at a convention centre in the southern Indian state of Kerala on Sunday where a Christian group was holding a prayer meeting.<\/p>\n
The incident took place during a Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses convention at the centre in Kalamassery, about 10 kilometres (6.21 miles) northeast of Kochi. The group was holding a three-day zonal convention that had seen more than 2,000 registrations, according to local media.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne person has been killed, and two other people are critical, others are in the hospital,\u201d Pinarayi Vijayan, chief minister of the southern state of Kerala told reporters. \u201cFurther details are being ascertained.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the incident was very unfortunate and that the police have taken it very seriously. He said police are collecting the details.<\/p>\n
Local assistant police commissioner P V Baby, speaking to AFP<\/em>, said one woman had been killed, while five others had suffered significant burns from flames during three-day prayer meetings attended by some 2,500 people.<\/p>\n The health and medical education departments have been instructed to provide high-quality treatment, said Kerala\u2019s health minister, Veena George.<\/p>\n P Rajeev, Kerala\u2019s industry minister, told reporters that the cause of the explosion could not be immediately determined.<\/p>\n \u201cA detailed investigation is on. The reason can be known only after the investigation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Press Trust of India<\/em> (PTI) news agency reported at least three \u201cblasts\u201d at a convention centre in Kalamassery during a prayer meeting on Sunday morning. It gave no further details on the cause.<\/p>\n Local newspaper Mathrubhumi<\/em> also said at least three explosions occurred inside the convention hall, with more than 23 people injured. The injured have been rushed to hospitals.<\/p>\n \u201cThe explosion occurred seconds after the end of a prayer as part of the day\u2019s event. The first blast took place in the middle of the hall. Seconds later, two more explosions rocked simultaneously on either sides of the hall,\u201d TA Sreekumar, regional spokesperson for the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses told mathrubhumi.com<\/em>.<\/p>\n Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses are an international Christian denomination that was founded in the United States around 1870. They are best known in many countries for door-to-door evangelism.<\/p>\n The movement, which preaches non-violence and is politically neutral, has a long history of being persecuted. It is a millennial faith, meaning its members believe that the end of the world is near and that God\u2019s kingdom will soon rule over the earth.<\/p>\n Around two per cent of India\u2019s 1.4 billion people are Christian, according to the last census.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At least one person was killed and several were injured in a series of explosions at a convention centre in the southern Indian state of Kerala on Sunday where a Christian group was holding a prayer meeting. The incident took place during a Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses convention at the centre in Kalamassery, about 10 kilometres (6.21 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/29120718053253e.jpg?r=135812","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}