THREE NEAR simultaneous bomb blasts rocked crowded bazaars and teeming neighbourhoods in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, last evening, killing at least 21 people and injuring over 100, many of them seriously.
Federal home minister P Chidambaram and state chief minister Prithviraj Chauhan told television news channels that the death toll could rise, as could the number of injured.
Mr Chidambaram said special anti-terrorist commandoes and National Investigation Agency officials were being flown to Mumbai to deal with the situation with the port city placed on “high alert”.
Both Mr Chidambaram and Mr Chauhan also appealed to Mumbai residents to “maintain peace” and “calm” and not crowd around the blast sites, to donate blood, not fuel rumours.
The federal government is also deploying at sensitive city locations National Security Guard commandoes who raised the three-day siege of Mumbai in November 2008 by 10 Pakistani gunmen who killed 166 people.
Federal home secretary RK Singh said all three “powerful” improvised explosive devices were detonated within 10 minutes of each other, beginning at about 6.45pm local time when all the blast sites were packed with shoppers, office workers and commuters. He said that explosion occurred at the teeming diamond market in Zaveri Bazaar in southern Mumbai followed by another at Dadar, a residential neighbourhood 15km away.
The third exploded at the crowded Opera House business district in the heart of the city, that is also popular with tourists. Eyewitnesses said the pavements were covered in blood and littered with body parts.
Mr Singh said initial reports indicated that one of the explosives had been placed in a car and the other on a motorcycle.
The third, according to eyewitnesses, is believed to have been placed on an electric pole.
“We were inside our office when we heard a huge noise,” businessman Jasraj Jain told the CNN-IBN news channel. “Outside there was a lot of commotion and we saw fire trucks take away two or three bodies.”
Local diamond merchant Jayesh Labd said the blast occurred at peak business hours and that most of the dead and injured were street hawkers.
Nobody has admitted responsibility for the blasts, which the federal government has declared to be a “terrorist strike”.
Because of the close timing of the string of explosions, “we infer that this was a coordinated attack by terrorists,” said Mr Chidambaram, who met intelligence chiefs and security agency heads in New Delhi to deal with the fallout.
Over the past decade, Mumbai has been the target of several terrorist attacks, including serial bomb blasts in 1993 that killed at least 260 people at the stock exchange and other areas.
In 2006, more than 180 people died when Islamist militants bombed commuter trains.
Mumbai residents blame the government and police for inaction and apathy, leading to repeated attacks on their city. – (Reuters)