Mumbai blasts

India's major cities were on high alert on Thursday after at least 17 were killed and more than 130 injured in three "coordinated attacks" in the financial hub Mumbai.

The three bomb blasts took place in three different parts of the city during the Wednesday evening rush hour – they ripped through the Zaveri Bazar, the Opera House business district, which is a hub for diamond traders, and the central Dadar area.

"We just came running down to see what happened," an eyewitness said. "In Diamond Lane we saw that everything was blown up and there was smoke and we just saw people lying there, yelling for help."

"I think they chose the places because of the density of the population and the very congested nature of these areas," Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram said at a press conference in Mumbai, after visiting the sites of what he said were “coordinated attacks."

"They chose places where even a low-intensity blast could have a great impact."

The bombs were reportedly made of ammonium nitrate explosive. They were not remotely triggered. At least one car and a motorbike were used in the attacks, officials said.

Plagued by terror

The financial metropolis on India's west coast is no stranger to terror, where dozens have been killed in various attacks over the years.

In November 2008, 10 Pakistani gunmen attacked several locations in the city, including high-end hotels and the main railway station. Over three days, 166 people were killed and 244 injured in one of the worst worst terrorist attacks in Indian history.

However, since then the situation had been rather calm in Mumbai, as the former chief minister of the province of Maharashtra Ashok Chavan pointed out. "Just when a feeling of confidence was developing in Mumbai that nothing has happened in the past two years, something like this comes up. It has really shaken up Mumbai again."

Appeal for calm

The authorities were quick to appeal for calm across the country. A special task force set up after the 2008 Mumbai attacks was immediately deployed to look into the latest blasts.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters that all angles would be investigated, all premises examined and all leads followed "without any predetermination."

He said that although the Indian police had no immediate leads, "all groups that have the capacity to carry out such terror attacks are suspect."

He also stated that there had been no warnings of an imminent attack on Mumbai, rejecting accusations of an intelligence failure. He said that maybe those "who perpetrated the attacks worked in a very clandestine manner, maybe a very small group that has not communicated with each other."

Speculation Pakistan-based groups could be involved

Since no group has claimed responsibility, there has been speculation in the Indian media that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) or the Indian Mujahideen, a home-grown group which is thought to have support from militants based in Pakistan, could be behind the attacks.

However, there was no immediate indication any Pakistani group was involved.

India broke off a peace dialogue with Pakistan after the 2008 attacks on the financial hub, blaming Islamabad for failing to crack down on the LeT. Talks between the two nuclear-armed rivals only resumed earlier this year.

Attacks condemned as 'heinous'

Pakistan's foreign ministry deplored Wednesday's attacks in a statement, which also said that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had "expressed their deepest sympathies to the Indian leadership."

Meanwhile, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton denounced the bombings as "heinous" on Thursday. She said she was "horrified to hear that Mumbai has again been the target of a series of deadly bomb attacks," in a statement released by her office.

The UN Security Council also condemned the blasts "in the strongest terms." Germany’s UN ambassador Peter Wittig read the following statement to reporters: "Any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed."

Author: Anne Thomas (dpa, Reuters, AFP)
Editor: Grahame Lucas