(MSNBC News posted the following on its website on July 11.)
MUMBAI, India – Seven bomb explosions rocked rail stations and trains in India’s financial hub Tuesday, killing 135 people and injuring 300, officials said. India’s major cities were put on high alert after the blasts.
Police Chief A.N. Roy said 135 people were killed and more than 250 injured, according to Reuters.
“We are busy in the rescue operation. Our first priority is to rescue the injured people,” he said on Indian television. However, heavy monsoon downpours were hampering the effort.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called an emergency Cabinet meeting, and said that “terrorists” were behind the attacks. Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters that authorities had “some” information an attack was coming, “but place and time was not known.”
Crowded trains
“The blasts happened when the trains were most crowded,” said D.K Shankaran, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital.
Police were also reportedly carrying out raids across the country following the explosions, presumably in search of suspects. One television report said a suspect was in custody.
Witnesses reported seeing body parts strewn about stations, and Indian television news channels broadcast footage of bystanders carrying victims to ambulances and searching through the wreckage for survivors and bodies. Some of the injured were seen frantically dialing their cell phones.
The force of the blasts ripped doors and windows off carriages, and luggage and debris were strewn about, splattered with blood. Survivors were seen clutching bloody bandages to their heads and faces. Some were able to get up and walk from the stations.
Tactic of Kashmiri militants
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but the blasts came in quick succession — a common tactic employed by Kashmiri separatists who have repeatedly targeted India’s cities.
The first explosion hit the train at a railway station in the northwestern suburb of Khar, said a police officer.
India’s CNN-IBN television news, which had a reporter traveling on the train, said the blast took place in a first-class car as the train was moving, ripping through the compartment and killing more than a dozen people.
Another CNN-IBN reporter said he had seen more than 20 bodies at one hospital in Mumbai, which was previously known as Bombay.
The Press Trust of India, citing railway officials, said all the blasts had hit first-class cars.
On high alert
All of India’s major cities were reportedly on high alert following the attacks, which came hours after a series of grenade attacks by Islamic extremists killed eight people in the main city of India’s part of Kashmir.
Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan in war after they gained independence from Britain in 1947, and they fought another full-scale conflict over the region in 1965.
But even as the two nuclear rivals have talked peace in the past two years, New Delhi has continued to accuse Pakistan of training, arming and funding the militants. Islamabad insists it only offers the rebels diplomatic and moral support.
Mumbai’s commuter rail network is among the most crowded in the world.
Condemnation from Pakistan
Accusations of Pakistani involvement in a 2001 attack on India’s parliament put the nuclear-armed rivals on the brink of a fourth war.
But since then, Pakistan and India embarked on a peace process aimed at resolving their differences, including their conflicting claims to all of Jammu-Kashmir.
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry issued a statement late Tuesday condemning the attacks.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the series of bomb blasts on commuter trains,” the ministry said in a statement. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat offered condolences over the loss of life, the statement said, adding that “terrorism is a bane of our times and it must be condemned, rejected and countered effectively and comprehensively.”
In Washington, the U.S. State Department said it had no information about whether there were any American casualties.