The Calcutta City Network

Mumbai, July 11: Terror coursed through India from its northern tip at noon to its financial heart at sundown, as synchronised grenade attacks in Srinagar gave way to multiple blasts on packed commuter trains in Mumbai, leaving over 147 dead.

Seven blasts ripped through first class compartments of suburban trains during the evening rush hours, wounding over 439 people at Matunga Road, Bandra, Mahim and Khar at one end and Jogeshwari, Borivli and Mira Road on the other.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, the worst in the city in over a decade. The first bomb went off at Khar at 6.25 pm and the last between Mira Road and Bhayander at 7.09 pm.

The multiple explosions were a bloody throwback to the blasts that maimed the city and killed 257 in March 1993, with the difference that commuters on Mumbai’s lifeline were targeted this time and not symbols of financial might like the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Commuters fled stations in panic after the explosions and mobile phone lines were jammed. Several bodies lay scattered on tracks. Television pictures showed twisted rail carriages and people in bloodstained clothes carrying the dead and wounded on stretchers.

“The blasts happened when the trains were most crowded,” D.K. Shankaran, state chief secretary, said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed to the people to remain calm and expressed the government’s resolve to “fight and defeat the evil designs of terrorists”. Sonia Gandhi reached the city tonight.

“The government will take all possible measures to maintain law and order and defeat the forces of terrorism,” Singh said after an emergency meeting in Delhi.

The impact of some of the blasts, suspected to have been triggered by RDX, was so huge that the walls and roofs of train bogies were ripped off. At Matunga Road, a part of the platform shed was blown off.

“We ran for our life as no one knew what was happening around us. Some people were trampled in the rush,” a survivor at Khar station said.

City police chief A.N. Roy said it was difficult to confirm the explosive used. “It is a bomb blast. We are not sure if it is RDX or not.”


The wreckage of a train at Matunga station.
The police, however, suspect the hand of the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Two Lashkar modules were busted in Aurangabad recently and 43 kg of RDX seized. Intelligence had then indicated the presence of sleeper modules in Mumbai.

Immediately after the blasts, all suburban and long-distance trains on the western railway line were suspended. The police cordoned off major road intersections, railway stations and exit points. Late tonight, the Andheri-Bandra line was reopened.

There were frenzied scenes at stations with people scrambling to get alternative modes of transport home. At Churchgate, frantic commuters tried to force-hop onto vans or other four-wheelers to get home.

Dazed survivors with wounds on their heads, legs and hands waited at railway stations, with little sign of any emergency medical aid.

“We heard a loud blast in one of the train compartments. When we rushed there and looked, we saw people with severed limbs and grievous injuries,” a witness said, standing in a blood-spattered coach. “There were no police or railway people to help.”

For four hours after the blasts, cellular and landline networks collapsed, hampering communication. Roads were jammed with traffic as hundreds of stranded train passengers scouted for alternative transport.

By late tonight, most of the wounded had been ferried to private and municipal hospitals, including V.N. Desai, Sion, Cooper and Bhabha. “At 10 pm, the seven municipal hospitals had 140 people confirmed dead and 340 injured. Additional doctors have reached hospitals. Blood donors are queueing up,” municipal commissioner Johny Joseph said.

Security has been beefed up at key installations, including the BSE, RBI and Bombay High.