Up to 135 die in Mumbai blasts
2006-07-11 18:39
Mumbai - At least 135 people were killed and hundreds injured in seven bomb explosions on packed commuter trains and stations on Tuesday in Mumbai, India's financial hub, officials said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the
evening rush hour attacks, the worst in the city for more than
a decade.
But suspicion was likely to centre on Muslim militants
fighting New Delhi's rule in disputed Kashmir, who have been
blamed for several bomb attacks in India in the past.
300 injured
City police commissioner AN Roy told Reuters 135 people
were killed while chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, the state's
top elected official, said 300 people were injured in the
blasts, which took place in the space of around 10 minutes.
"We are not sure if it is RDX or not," Roy said, referring
to the possible use of high-powered plastic explosives.
Panic
Commuters fled suburban rail stations in panic after the
explosions and mobile phone lines were jammed.
Television pictures showed twisted rail carriages and
people in torn and bloodstained clothes carrying the dead and
wounded on stretchers as steady monsoon rain fell.
A policeman was shown carrying two white, blood-stained
bundles of what appeared to be body parts. Local media said the
blasts appeared to have targeted first-class compartments.
Hundreds of dazed passengers walked along the railway
tracks.
"The blasts happened when the trains were most crowded,"
DK Shankaran, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra, of
which Mumbai is the capital, told Reuters.
'Shameful act'
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for calm and Sonia
Gandhi, leader of the ruling Congress party, expressed her
grief.
"I urge the people to remain calm, not to believe rumours
and carry on their activity normally," Singh said in a
statement, calling the explosions a "shameful act".
High alert
Singh immediately called the home (interior) minister and
top officials to an emergency meeting to discuss the violence.
"Security has been definitely put on high alert," home
secretary VKDuggal told reporters ahead of the meeting.
Pakistan condemns attack
The Mumbai blasts came just hours after suspected Islamist
militants killed seven people, six of them tourists, in a
series of grenade attacks in Indian Kashmir's main city,
Srinagar, police said, the most concerted targeting of
civilians in months.
Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since
shortly after the two countries gained independence from
Britain in 1947, but both claim it in full.
Pakistan's foreign ministry issued a statement saying that
President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz
strongly condemned the "terrorist attack" in Mumbai.
Previous blasts
Mumbai, a metropolis of about 17 million formerly known as
Bombay, has been hit by bomb blasts in the past decade.
More than 250 people died in a string of bomb explosions in
the city in 1993 for which authorities blamed the city's
underworld criminal gangs. Those attacks followed the
demolition of a mosque in the Hindu holy city of Ayodhya.
- Reuters