At least 200 people were killed in bombings that ripped through packed commuter trains in Mumbai, a top Indian state official confirmed this afternoon.
"Two hundred bodies have been found," the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state, told politicians in the state assembly.
The number of dead in the bombings has risen steadily since last night as rescue efforts have uncovered more dead and people have succumbed to their injuries.
Officials say more than 700 people were wounded in the attack.
The eight bombs tore through packed trains, stunning a city that embodies India's global ambitions, presenting itself to the world as a crowded and cosmopolitan metropolis where bankers dine with movie stars and fashion models party until dawn.
As Mumbai's 16 million people struggled to regain their footing today, suspicion for the blasts fell on Kashmiri militants who have in the past carried out near-simultaneous attacks on Indian cities, including bombings last year at three markets in New Delhi that killed 59 people.
But two of the main Islamic militant groups in the Himalayan region — Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen — said in separate statements today that they had nothing to do with the Mumbai bombings or a series of grenade attacks in Kashmir yesterday that killed eight people.
The Times of India reported today that Indian intelligence officials believe two groups, the Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, were responsible for the blasts.
Both groups were blamed for a series of Mumbai bombings in 2003. Yesterday's attacks drew condemnation from around the world, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said "terrorists" were behind the bombings, which he called "shocking and cowardly".
Police today picked through the mangled train cars, placing evidence in blue plastic bags and shooing away curious onlookers. "We are just trying to establish what kind of explosives were used and where exactly the bombs were placed, but it appears they were kept in the luggage racks," said police inspector Yeshwant Patil, who was helping sift through one wrecked train carriage.
His assessment matches with initial reports that most of the victims suffered head and chest injuries, presumably from blasts above their heads. But even as authorities said they were trying to determine the nature of the bombs, the CNN-IBN television news channel, citing police, reported that powerful RDX explosives were used, and that police found timers at one of the station's
AP