INDIA: Heightened security across the country as police investigate Mumbai train blasts that killed more than 180 people.

Record ID: 1379709

  • Title: INDIA: Heightened security across the country as police investigate Mumbai train blasts that killed more than 180 people.
  • Date: 12th July 2006
  • Summary: (W3) NEW DELHI, INDIA (JULY 12, 2006) (ANI) (SOUNDBITE) (English) V.K.DUGGAL, INDIA'S FEDERAL INTERIOR (HOME) SECRETARY, SAYING: "The forensic results have not come in but it was a high intensity explosive probably RDX."
  • Embargoed: 27th July 2006 12:39
  • Keywords:
  • Location: India
  • Country: India
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Transport
  • Reuters ID: LVAEJTPPL8NLFWQAZPQXLF80YQU0
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Victims of Mumbai's deadly bombings battled for life in crowded city hospitals on Wednesday (July 12), but millions of others put the threat of more attacks to the back of their minds as India's financial hub went back to work.
    Investigators picked through mangled trains to search for clues as to who was behind Tuesday's (11/7) seven coordinated bomb blasts that killed at least 185 people. Suspicion fell on Pakistan-based militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
    Tuesday's attacks, on first-class compartments and railway stations, seemed to have been aimed at the heart of India's economic success story, but just hours later the city's residents were back at work and the stock market was steady.
    Around 700 were wounded when seven bombs blew apart railway carriages and stations packed with rush-hour commuters in the space of just 11 minutes.
    The number of dead was the highest since a series of bombs killed more than 250 in Mumbai in 1993. The attacks were also eerily reminiscent of serial bomb blasts on commuter rail networks in Madrid and London in the past two years.
    On Wednesday (July 12) relatives and friends of victims were still poring over survivors' lists at city hospitals, or trying to identify charred and mutilated corpses. Others were inside the wards, tending to the injured lying on blood-soaked beds.
    Extra police were deployed at railway stations, parks, markets and religious institutions across the country to prevent further attacks and possible violence between Hindus and Muslims.
    But instead of violence, there was a rare show of harmony between the two communities. Muslims queued for hours in Mumbai to give blood to their Hindu neighbours, and also helped injured Hindus to hospitals and gave relatives cups of tea.
    State ministers encouraged people to set aside their differences.
    "I had a meeting with representatives of all political parties in Maharashtra today and I am very happy. By the way, we set aside our differences and brainstormed to arrive at a course of action. We would like the people of Maharashtra to take cue from this and keep our unity intact," Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, said.
    The explosions happened hours after a series of grenade attacks on tourists in Srinagar, capital of Indian Kashmir, which killed eight people. Another grenade explosion at a mountain resort in Kashmir on Wednesday wounded five more tourists.
    Police in Kashmir blamed the attacks there on the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which authorities say is backed by Pakistan and was also behind bomb blasts in crowded markets in New Delhi last October that killed more than 60.
    India's Home Secretary V.K. Duggal said that, although the explosives were different, the same people could have been behind both sets of attacks. He confirmed that a high intensity explosive had been used in the attacks.
    Newspapers quoted unnamed security sources as naming Lashkar as the prime suspect for the Mumbai blasts, but the group denied any role in the "inhuman and barbaric acts".
    Pakistan, which denies supporting the militants, condemned what it called a "terrorist attack" in Mumbai.
    After a meeting with Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, Asfandyar Wali Khan, President of Pakistan's Awami National Party, said the two neighbours would not be deterred from finding apeaceful solution to Kashmir.
    "Today, the Prime Minister was absolutely clear on it. He said in no way would it affect the peace process that is taking place due to events like this. And I also believe that there are people in both the countries who do not want peace. And they, whenever they feel, the peace process is going ahead, incident like these take place just so that they can sabotage that peace. So, it depends on us, whether we give that right to that very small minority to decide our future or do we decide our own future ourselves,"Khan said.
    Indian Junior Foreign Minister Anand Sharma said the blasts were aimed at "wrecking" the peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals but New Delhi remained committed to improving ties with Islamabad.
    Mumbai is a teeming metropolis of contrasts, with glitzy high-rise office and apartment blocks standing side-by-side with slums and pavement dwellers. Home to Bollywood, the world's biggest movie industry, the city lures millions of rural poor.
    But, although sometimes considered to be hard-hearted, Mumbai residents went out of their way to help fellow city dwellers, offering rides in cars, providing water and biscuits, and taking the dead and injured to hospitals.
    After a shaky start on Wednesday, India's financial markets regained their poise, with the stock market closing up nearly three percent.
  • Copyright Holder: ANI (India)
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