7:46 AM
Latest Breaking News
The strongest of the coordinated explosions hit busy
districts in the south of the city, the same area targeted two
and half years ago by Pakistan-based militants who caused mayhem
in a 60-hour siege that left 166 people dead.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who arrived at the scene hours
after Wednesday night's attack along with forensic experts and
anti-terror commandos from New Delhi, earlier told reporters it
was "a coordinated attack by terrorists".
The most powerful devices exploded at a wholesale gold
market and a district housing diamond traders and jewellery shops
in southern Mumbai, while a third blast occurred in a middle-
class area to the north.
"It is another attack on the heart of India," said the chief
minister of Maharashtra state, Prithviraj Chavan, who described
it as a "challenge to Indian sovereignty". It was not immediately
clear who was behind the attacks.
The home ministry gave the death toll and said 141 injured
victims had been taken to 11 city hospitals, many of them in a
serious condition.
The United States and the United Nations led international
condemnation of the blasts, with Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton calling them "despicable" and vowing to visit India next
week as planned.
Clinton said the blasts were "designed to provoke fear and
division" and added: "Those who perpetrated them must know they
cannot succeed."
All three bombs, which chief minister Chavan said had been
detonated with timers, were reported within a 15-minute period,
starting at around 6:50pm (1320 GMT).
Fashion photographer Rutavi Metha heard a "massive"
explosion and ran towards the site of the bomb in the gold market
area known as Zaveri Bazaar.
"There were bodies on the ground and a lot of blood. Local
people were trying to help, picking up the injured and putting
them in cars to drive them to hospital," she said.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the blasts
and appealed for calm.
No group claimed responsibility, though suspicions initially
fell on two Islamist groups that have targeted India in the past:
the home-grown Indian Mujahideen and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-
e-Taiba (LeT).
In November 2008, 10 militants from the LeT attacked
multiple targets in Mumbai, including five-star hotels, in an
assault known as "26/11" in India and often compared here to the
September 11 attacks on the United States.
A statement from Pakistan's foreign ministry deplored
Wednesday's attacks and said President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had "expressed their deepest
sympathies to the Indian leadership".
US President Barack Obama said the bombings were
"outrageous", while Britain described the explosions as
"deplorable acts of terrorism" and the UN Security Council
"condemned in the strongest terms" the deadly attack.
Eyewitnesses outside a diamond trader building in south
Mumbai said a bomb had exploded when the area was packed with
office workers heading home.
Fire brigade floodlights showed the full extent of the
damage in a claustrophobic side street in the Opera House area.
Sandals were abandoned among the muddy puddles and potholes
overflowing with steady monsoon rain; roadside food stalls were
overturned in the gutter and the mangled remains of a car stood
with its doors hanging off.
"More than 5,000 people pass through here every minute,"
said Jayesh Labdhi, a committee member of the Mumbai Diamond
Merchants' Association, standing near the wreckage of a white
car.
"There was a huge big blast. We didn't know what it was but
after a couple of minutes we saw so much smoke everywhere. There
were so many people lying on the ground just crying out and
wanting help," Labdhi told AFP.
The last major bombing in India was in February last year in
the western city of Pune, when a blast at a packed restaurant
killed 16 people including several foreigners.
In 2006, a series of seven high-powered blasts on suburban
trains in Mumbai killed 187 commuters and left 800 injured -- an
attack that India also blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
India broke off a peace dialogue with Pakistan after the
2008 attacks, blaming Islamabad for failing to crack down on the
LeT. Talks between the two nuclear-armed rivals only resumed
earlier this year.
The Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers are scheduled to
meet in New Delhi in the last week of July.
Posted in: India probes 'terror' blasts that kill 21 in Mumbai
0 comments:
Post a Comment