Protests erupted Friday in southeast India and several federal ministers tendered their resignations, a day after the government bowed to a longstanding and often violent campaign for a new state called Telangana.

Demonstrators blocked roads and took to the streets in coastal regions of the state of Andhra Pradesh after the highly contentious decision by the cabinet of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to split the state into two.

Militant Islamists told Indian police interrogators last year of plans for a possible attack in the area of Hyderabad where twin blasts killed 14 people, a senior police official said Friday.

"We interrogated two militants (from the Indian Mujahideen group), who said they had monitored various spots in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune for a possible attack. One of the places they mentioned was Dilsukh Nagar, which was hit last night," S.N. Shrivastava, a Delhi police commissioner, told Agence France Presse.