Grenade blasts in Venezuela injures 10

Caracas: Two grenade explosions in greater Caracas injured 10 people Sunday, six of them police, an official said.

One of the policemen is in intensive care because a piece of shrapnel hit him in the eye and lodged in his brain, said Gerardo Blyde, mayor of the capital`s Baruta district.

The pre-dawn attack was similar to two others Thursday and Friday at police stations elsewhere in Venezuela, said Ricardo Sanchez, a lawmaker in the National Assembly.

And over the past four months there had four other attacks on police stations, said Sanchez.

They were all of a paramilitary nature and aimed to demoralize police officers, causing them to quit the force or refrain from serious investigation of crimes, he added.

In mid-July the government of President Nicolas Maduro started sending police into slum areas to break up gangs. In some cases, officers have seized military-grade weapons including grenades.