Three bombs rocked crowded districts of Mumbai during rush hour on Wednesday, killing at least 21 people in the biggest militant attack on India’s financial capital since 2008 assaults.
At least 100 people were injured on Wednesday and preliminary reports showed the death toll had risen to 21 in the “terror attacks” centred mainly on Mumbai’s jewellery trading centres, Umesh Sarangi, a senior government official, told Reuters “This is another attack on the heart of India, heart of Mumbai. We will fully meet challenge, we are much better prepared than 26/11,” Prithviraj Chavan, the state’s chief minister said, referring to the 2008 attacks.
Blame: Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram also said “terrorists” were to blame. “The blast occurred at about 6:45pm (1315 GMT) within minutes of each other. Therefore, we infer that this was a coordinated attack by terrorists,” Chidambaram told reporters. At least one car and a motorbike were used in the coordinated attacks believed to have used improvised explosive devices, officials said. “This tactic is much more in line with those used by more amateurish groups such as the Indian Mujahideen who have targeted crowded urban areas before,” Stratfor, a strategic affair think tank, said in a statement.
Responsibility: No group claimed responsibility for the attack, though suspicions initially fell on two extremist groups that have targeted India in the past: the home-grown Indian Mujahideen and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LT), AFP reported.
Condemnation: US President Barack Obama strongly condemned the attacks and offered support to bring the perpetrators to justice. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani also condemned Wednesday’s blasts in a statement.
Indian envoy: Meanwhile, India’s Ambassador to Pakistan Sharat Sabharwal, who was in Lahore on a three-day visit on Wednesday, rushed back to Islamabad as soon as he came to know of the blasts in Mumbai. Sources said that New Delhi had asked him to rush to Islamabad to prepare to take up the issue with the Foreign Office in case there was even a hint of Pakistan’s involvement in the attacks.
The Indian media, however, has started accusing Pakistan of involvement without any evidence.
