http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/11/news/india.php
Train bombs in Mumbai kill 147
By Amelia Gentleman International Herald Tribune
Published: July 11, 2006
NEW DELHI India's government blamed terrorist groups for a highly organized rush-hour attack on the nation's financial capital Tuesday evening, after seven blasts ripped through crowded trains in Mumbai, killing as many as 147 people and wounding more than 400.
The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, described the attacks as "shocking and cowardly attempts to spread a feeling of fear" and called on citizens to remain calm.
The police in major cities across the country were nevertheless placed on high alert, and security at airports was increased.
Speaking before joining an emergency meeting convened by Singh, the home minister, Shivraj Patil, said that the authorities had "some" information that an attack was coming, "but the place and time was not known."
All the blasts were understood to have been detonated within the space of about a half-hour on moving trains that were taking commuters from the city center to the suburbs shortly after 6 p.m., a time when the network is normally packed to capacity. An eighth bomb was found and defused by the police, according to a television report.
The police said the attack had been carefully planned and coordinated.
No organization came forward to claim responsibility in the hours following the blasts, and the Indian government was careful to avoid speculation over who might have been behind the attacks.
The Indian media, however, were quick to highlight the possible involvement of Kashmiri militant groups fighting for the separation of their Muslim-majority state from India. The Mumbai attacks came hours after a number of coordinated grenade attacks by Islamist extremists killed eight people in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Analysts said that the orchestration of several blasts in quick succession, like those that tore through the Mumbai rail network, was a tactic employed by Kashmiri groups, adding that such precise coordination suggested the involvement of a well-established militant organization.
One of the most notorious militant groups active in Kashmir, Lashkar-e- Toiba, was implicated in the multiple bombings last October in crowded Delhi markets, in which 63 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded.
Scenes of confusion in Mumbai late Tuesday were broadcast on Indian television.
On one train, screaming commuters tried to escape from mangled rail cars, while distressed travelers worked to lift badly wounded fellow passengers off the tracks to safety.
The force of the explosion tore off the train's windows and doors, and body parts could be seen among the mechanical wreckage on the railway sidings. Extensive damage was visible inside other carriages targeted by the attackers.
"I can't hear anything," said Shailesh Mhate, a man in his 20s, sitting in the Veena Desai Hospital surrounded by bloody cotton swabs, told The Associated Press.
"People around me didn't survive. I don't know how I did."
Reports indicated that the scale and the geographical range of the multiple attacks overwhelmed the city's emergency services, and many wounded passengers were forced to make their way to the hospital on foot.
Scenes at the city's hospitals were chaotic, with medical staff admitting to reporters that they were ill-equipped to deal with the number of wounded passengers requiring amputations and treatment for serious burns.
Heavy traffic and a sudden monsoon downpour was making the rescue operation difficult, officials said, and ambulance workers and police officers were unable to reach some of the blasts sites until long after the attacks.
Phone networks were jammed in the city of 16 million, adding to the chaos in the aftermath of the explosions.
The chief minister of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, Vilasrao Deshmukh, told the Press Club of India that by late Tuesday the death toll stood at 147 with an additional 439 wounded.
Officials indicated that the final casualty toll could be higher. At peak times, each train car on the network is designed to hold between 400 and 600 people.
The first explosion hit a train at a railway station in the northwestern suburb of Khar. Six more blasts followed along the line of the western railway at the Mahim, Bandra, Matunga, Borivili, Mira Road and Jogeshwari stations.
On some trains, the alarm was so intense that passengers were reported to have thrown themselves from moving cars after hearing the blasts. Most of the bombs were understood to have gone off in first-class cars.
Despite a recent improvement in relations between Pakistan and India, officials in Delhi have continued to berate Pakistan for failing to clamp down on militant activity in its territory.
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan came out swiftly Tuesday to condemn the attacks, describing the event as a "despicable act of terrorism."
Officials in Mumbai were making a pointed attempt to get the city back on its feet swiftly late Tuesday, and the police said that they were working to reopen the rail network, used by six million people daily.
A spokesman for the Bombay Stock Exchange said it was expected to be operating as usual Wednesday.
Mumbai, formerly named Bombay, has been targeted by serial bomb attacks on several occasions in its recent history.
In 2003, 13 blasts in quick succession in India's financial center killed more than 250 people; the attacks were blamed on mafia organizations.
NEW DELHI India's government blamed terrorist groups for a highly organized rush-hour attack on the nation's financial capital Tuesday evening, after seven blasts ripped through crowded trains in Mumbai, killing as many as 147 people and wounding more than 400.
The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, described the attacks as "shocking and cowardly attempts to spread a feeling of fear" and called on citizens to remain calm.
The police in major cities across the country were nevertheless placed on high alert, and security at airports was increased.
Speaking before joining an emergency meeting convened by Singh, the home minister, Shivraj Patil, said that the authorities had "some" information that an attack was coming, "but the place and time was not known."
All the blasts were understood to have been detonated within the space of about a half-hour on moving trains that were taking commuters from the city center to the suburbs shortly after 6 p.m., a time when the network is normally packed to capacity. An eighth bomb was found and defused by the police, according to a television report.
The police said the attack had been carefully planned and coordinated.
No organization came forward to claim responsibility in the hours following the blasts, and the Indian government was careful to avoid speculation over who might have been behind the attacks.
The Indian media, however, were quick to highlight the possible involvement of Kashmiri militant groups fighting for the separation of their Muslim-majority state from India. The Mumbai attacks came hours after a number of coordinated grenade attacks by Islamist extremists killed eight people in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Analysts said that the orchestration of several blasts in quick succession, like those that tore through the Mumbai rail network, was a tactic employed by Kashmiri groups, adding that such precise coordination suggested the involvement of a well-established militant organization.
One of the most notorious militant groups active in Kashmir, Lashkar-e- Toiba, was implicated in the multiple bombings last October in crowded Delhi markets, in which 63 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded.
Scenes of confusion in Mumbai late Tuesday were broadcast on Indian television.
On one train, screaming commuters tried to escape from mangled rail cars, while distressed travelers worked to lift badly wounded fellow passengers off the tracks to safety.
The force of the explosion tore off the train's windows and doors, and body parts could be seen among the mechanical wreckage on the railway sidings. Extensive damage was visible inside other carriages targeted by the attackers.
"I can't hear anything," said Shailesh Mhate, a man in his 20s, sitting in the Veena Desai Hospital surrounded by bloody cotton swabs, told The Associated Press.
"People around me didn't survive. I don't know how I did."
Reports indicated that the scale and the geographical range of the multiple attacks overwhelmed the city's emergency services, and many wounded passengers were forced to make their way to the hospital on foot.
Scenes at the city's hospitals were chaotic, with medical staff admitting to reporters that they were ill-equipped to deal with the number of wounded passengers requiring amputations and treatment for serious burns.
Heavy traffic and a sudden monsoon downpour was making the rescue operation difficult, officials said, and ambulance workers and police officers were unable to reach some of the blasts sites until long after the attacks.
Phone networks were jammed in the city of 16 million, adding to the chaos in the aftermath of the explosions.
The chief minister of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, Vilasrao Deshmukh, told the Press Club of India that by late Tuesday the death toll stood at 147 with an additional 439 wounded.
Officials indicated that the final casualty toll could be higher. At peak times, each train car on the network is designed to hold between 400 and 600 people.
The first explosion hit a train at a railway station in the northwestern suburb of Khar. Six more blasts followed along the line of the western railway at the Mahim, Bandra, Matunga, Borivili, Mira Road and Jogeshwari stations.
On some trains, the alarm was so intense that passengers were reported to have thrown themselves from moving cars after hearing the blasts. Most of the bombs were understood to have gone off in first-class cars.
Despite a recent improvement in relations between Pakistan and India, officials in Delhi have continued to berate Pakistan for failing to clamp down on militant activity in its territory.
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan came out swiftly Tuesday to condemn the attacks, describing the event as a "despicable act of terrorism."
Officials in Mumbai were making a pointed attempt to get the city back on its feet swiftly late Tuesday, and the police said that they were working to reopen the rail network, used by six million people daily.
A spokesman for the Bombay Stock Exchange said it was expected to be operating as usual Wednesday.
Mumbai, formerly named Bombay, has been targeted by serial bomb attacks on several occasions in its recent history.
In 2003, 13 blasts in quick succession in India's financial center killed more than 250 people; the attacks were blamed on mafia organizations.
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