Via NY Times.
There were three blasts in Mumbai today during rush hour today, reportedly hitting Dadar, Opera House and Zaveri Bazar areas. According to the Guardian’s live updates, “There were no confirmed numbers of fatalities or injuries but NDTV quoted reports saying 10 people have been killed,” while the Indian Home Secretary says over 60 people have been injured. The numbers are likely to rise. Although BBC News reported, “The blasts coincide with the birthday of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks which killed nearly 170 people,” this is untrue. Kasab’s birthday is in September (!).
There is no news yet on who perpetrated the blasts, but according to NDTV, this was confirmed as a terrorist attack. At this time, a lot of people like to perpetuate rumors. I’ll be following news outlets and journalists on my Twitter timeline and keep this space updated. Our prayers go out to those in Mumbai.
UPDATE 1100 EST: NDTV reports Mumbai police & the Home Ministry suspect the Indian Mujahideen. NDTV is now discussing the areas were targeting, noting that the three areas were all very crowded and the “near-simultaneous” attacks occurred at a time at a busy time (7:00 pm IST). Al Jazeera noted that this attack occurred just a few days after the anniversary of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
UPDATE 1110 EST: Friends in Mumbai, for places to stay, people needing rides, and medical care, see this spreadsheet. The Guardian cited Maseeh Rahman who told the news agency,
The home ministry said it’s a terrorist attack and has rushed three teams from the newly-created National Intelligence Agency to Mumbai, including forensic experts.
Most people were injured at Zaveri Bazaar, where Mumbai’s bullion traders and jewelry shops are located, and at Opera House, where diamond exporters have their offices and workshops.
Zaveri Bazaar is close to the city police headquarters, and has been bombed by terrorists twice in the past – in 1993 and in 2002. This time the improvised explosive device was placed inside an electrical meter box.
The third blast was near Dadar Railway Station in central Mumbai at a road intersection known as Kabutar Khana (Pigeon House), where devout Hindus come to feed the city’s pigeons.
UPDATE 1120 EST: Via the Express Tribune, the MP of South Mumbai tells NDTV – avoid rumor mongering, avoid messages that spread communal discontent. NDTV also says that an IED has been found hidden in an umbrella. The Home Minister says that the official casualty account is 10 dead, 54 admitted to hospital [i.e., injured]. Two teams from Delhi and Hyderabad have been dispatched to Mumbai, which has been put on high alert. The Home Minister is appealing for calm.
UPDATE 1142 EST: Death toll has risen to 13. Crowd management, according to Al Jazeera English, is an issue and an impediment to rescue work. The most intense blast was at the Opera House. Officials are urging people to remain calm to facilitate in these efforts. NDTV spoke to Prithviraj Chavan, chief minister of Maharashtra, home of Mumbai, who said the number injured is now 83 . He also did not want to comment on who the perpetrators of the blast are – saying instead that their first priority is to help people in need.
UPDATE 1155 EST: 13 people killed, 81 people injured is latest count, via NDTV. All three blasts were caused by IEDs. Via the WSJ, “Vikas Mahekar, a member of the Maharashtra nationalist group the Shiv Sena, in Colaba: “We immensely condemn the attacks…All these talks of a safer Mumbai is just an eye wash. The reality is out for everyone to see today.” Because of the low-intensity of the blasts, hope the toll will stay relatively low: NDTV (Strongest was at Opera House, where the IED was hidden in an umbrella).
UPDATE 1205 EST: Via the Guardian updates, “NDTV is reporting that two members of the Indian Mujahideen, who have been blamed by Mumbai police for the attacks, were arrested in the city yesterday.” Again, remember that Indian officials are not commenting on who committed the attacks.
Via Channel 4, here is a map of the blast locations:
UPDATE 1210 EST: Via Twitter, @AnandWrites has created a crisis crowdmap post-attack. Here it is.
UPDATE 1330 EST: NDTV keeps speaking to eyewitnesses, who basically discuss the chaos and the blood that was “everywhere.” Via the WSJ, “News channel NDTV says police are already looking at footage from a CCTV near the bus stop in the Dadar area and another in the Opera House area.” Death toll has risen to 21, 120 injured. According to NDTV, the leads are “currently very sketchy.” According to the Home Minister, all of the injured have been taken to hospitals. The blasts occurred at 6:45 pm IST, within minutes of each other, therefore allowing officials to conclude that attacks were coordinated.
UPDATE 1630 EST: (Last one of the day) Death toll: 21 dead, 141 injured.
[…] Mumbai Blasts Coverage […]
AAAAAHHH!
As expected ….Now all liberals, and Qads of Pakistan will join together like a crows with the word and blames emitting guns…
Don’t you guys have some useful things to do?
Seriously – why do you even read this blog? This is me being useful. If you don’t find it useful, then don’t read it. Easy.
Agreed!
Respectfully, I would say what Kalsoom is doing very useful.
Regards
you are a serious mental nutcase and a shame for pakistanis and muslims
Uh-oh. This could not come at a worse time for Pakistan. If it is Indian Mujahideen there will be at least financial links to LeT/ISI.
Yeah. Let’s just wait though. No confirmed reports yet.
Right. But, you know, it almost doesn’t matter who is behind it. India will *believe* it is Pakistan (and that is partly Pakistan’s fault). And, India will not make military strikes in retaliation. But, they will subvert Pakistan, which is already failing on several fronts. They will foment separatism in Balochistan, blacken the name of Pakistan with potential investors, etc. Already Gen. Pasha’s trip to the US is ruined. He will just get chewed out and leave. Why doesn’t Pakistan make a goodwill gesture to India like turning over Dawood? Is harboring him really worth the economic cost when we don’t even have reliable electricity anymore?? Capital-flight out of Pakistan is huge right now. Nobody is investing there.
Personally, I would prefer military stikes. People are fed up.
To dear friends from Pakistan,
We dont want bloodshed, you dont want bloodshed. We want to earn our bread and butter, study and research, get good health care, etc. From my little exposure to Pakistani friends abroad (we end up meeting at Biryani shops, grocery stores, movie halls and local cricket competitions.) and my Muslim buddys at home (from school initially, then college, then work.. all the while the list adding up) in India, my humble little brain tells me – till one practices religion at one’s home without bothering the other, no one really cares. And it works!!
However all this Hindu Muslim fighting nonsense comes from mostly politicians and in your case from mulla – military – ISI nexus as we understand. You reign on your sets of idiots while we reign on our set of idiots (read Lokpal). And lets hope things will improve.
There are few ways in my humble opinion that relations improve:
1. Let humans intermingle, inter-brainstorm and intermarry. Suddenly prospectives change and horizons broaden. E.g. Akbar the Great was a dude at this.
2. Let regions / countries trade. If $1 and $1 add up to $3, economics rules over everything else. E.g. Chinese are dudes at this – they trade the highest with their enemies.
3. Goodwill gestures – as the gentleman above stated give that Dawood chap. E.g. Indo-Bangla relations seem to be on the upbeat with India giving financial aid, not building idiotic dams, building power plants for Bangladesh and Bangladesh giving India some idiot ULFA terrorist leader and both countries agreeing to transit treaty, settle border dispute and work towards trade. Note – Bangla is not sold to India, they are building similar competitive relations with China. E.g. Indo-Srilanka free trade agreement. etc etc.
Of course all said and done, there are idiots on all sides who will attempt to screw things up.
Anyways time to return to work.
i hope its not any of our ”security” peeps! although i think it will be!
Excellent coverage
Thank you! Such a horrific thing to cover though. And in the meantime, Karachi went to tatters thanks to Zulfiqar Mirza. Sigh. No breaks.
Few points:
1. Please do not be under the impression that Govt of India *likes* to blame Pakistan for anything and everything. If the trail leads to Pakistan, so be it. If it leads internall, so be it. If it leads internally first and then to Pakistan, so be it!
2. Handing over Dawood would be a great first step if Pakistan is truly serious about making good on past mistakes. A quid-pro-quo could be agreed upon so that we make a clean break from the past. It is upto Gilani, Kayani & Co to decide whether they want to do that.
3. The location of Dadar blast is right outside a kiddie school. Just 10-15 feet from there you have a Hanuman mandir, Baghdadi masjid and a cross cheek-by-jowl. The Kabutarkhana is another 20-30 feet away with a Jain mandir right next to it. And no, not just ‘devout hindus’ offer food to the pigeons. How I love the way UK based news agencies insert such tiny religious slants in their reporting. *rolleyes*
A relative escaped this blast by 10-15 seconds. She crossed the bus-stop, heard the blast and turned around to see smoke. I am just happy that she is in one piece but what about those innocent civilians who fall pray to bombs and bullets – in India and elsewhere. Surely they deserve justice?!!
This is yet another sad incident. Though i should not say this but the Indians should know how Pakistan feels cause here every day we witness terror attacks.
Wasim, We are not the ones who plant bombs in karachi. But the terorrists who killed 160 odd during 26/11 have been sent by your ISI and voice samples are with your government. Private sector terrorism by JUD/LET etc cannot be condoned because your nation cannot control them. Your army took immediate action to catch and hand over the Uzbek and Tazik terrorists to China. Your army trained the Jundoallh terrorists againt Iran and the present Zardari leadership handed over them to Iran and stopped further.Now we Indians cannot feel the same way because we Indians are creating that mayhem in Karachi.Even the Lankan cricket team attack was blamed on India but now you know. But in the Indian middle class and security establishment, a feeling is growing that Pakistan cannot be allowed to escape without cost of these terror.strikes in India.
Captain Johann, i can give u many examples in which India has been involved in de-stabilizing Pakistan. what about the unrest in Baluchistan? we have found indian currency in that particular area. Indians were also funding the Taliban’s. Again all these allegations lack evidence but when you say Pakistan is behind the attacks in India it again lacks concrete evidence. My point was that we should start working together for the betterment of this region. No need to play the blame game as the situation in our part of the world is quite sensitive.
@wasim : Please give us links from International media and not from the propaganda machine you call your media. Just saying it louder and louder & again and again does not make a false statement true.
You don’t believe us about ISI or Pakistani elements in 26/11. Fine. Who do you believe? US ? Headley confessed there about Pakistani “fringe” elements. is that proof enough? I guess not.
I don’t want to blame whole of Pakistan for this. However, I feel this denial among Pakistan(hell even the whole Muslim world) that they are the innocent victims here. You are not the victims here. We are.
@ Aditya…
i can say the same thing, we all know Pakistan is involved in the great Game. There have been endless conspiracy theories, we all know that. im sure you are also aware the conspiracy theories about 9/11. You guys need to access the situation properly. Everyday we experience terror acts, who do we blame? India? so its time we think logically!
@Dr.Jawad Killing of innocent people whether in Karachi or Mumbai, should be condemned unequivocally.
These attacks will put more difference between Pakistan and India for sure. It is imperative that we take care of this situation and let not escalate it more as it will be worse for our economy!!
i fail to understand that whenever there is an attack why do we think that Pakistan is responsible for it? Pakistan has been facing all kinds of terror attack, does that mean we bomb our citizens? so its in our best interest that we dont classify a certain nation into this category.
@wasim : Apologies in advance for being snarky but the very fact that you fail to understand why the needle of suspicion always go to Pakistan is a major reason why peace is hard to achieve between India and Pak.
Pakistan lives in denial and under a sense of superiority. Pakistan keeps on harping about India’s interference in Baloch but has till now never provided any concrete proof. Our proof’s for its involvement lead to nowhere.
In short the answer to your question could just have been Kargil, Indian Parliament, Mumbai (26/11) etc. I could go on and on and on.
@Aditya: i fail to understand when you say that Pakistan has never provided proof to india, on the other hand u must realize that India never provided concrete evidence to Pakistan regarding Mumbai attacks. The initial report suggested that it was an inside job. My only point here is that we should stop this blame game and work together to eliminate terrorism from this region.
I agree with the second part of your statement but i dont get it why we blame Pakistan whenever there is a terror attack? There are many other possibilities also. Let the inquiry commission give its verdict then maybe we can play with the conspiracy theories.
India has provided the voice samples of Mumbai 26/11 attackers and it is for your government to act on it.There is growing middleclass opinion in India that Pakistan is getting away with low cost war in the form of terrorism aimed at India and getting away with it because it only kills ” Idol worshippers” as per your Mullahs.Our seminarists are asking for playing the game equally against Pakistan by exploiting Baloch,Sindhi,Mujahir discontent.
India supported the Northern Alliance while your country in alliance with USA supported the Taliban. Wehn Taliban won you were happy but now when the same guys are targetting the world including you from bases in North wazirstan , naturally the whole world blames you. Muslims in India are now asking similar question why muslim youth are being arrrested after the recent Mumabi blasts. They just cannot understand LET,JUD,Indian Mujahadeen,Harkat ul Ansar are all terrorist orgs. Hindu fundemntalists who have tragetted Smajautha exp and Ajmer dargha etc are targetting Muslims while terrorists target every one which is the major difference between the two.
Voice samples? or should i say tempered voice samples? And what about Indian involvement in Baluchistan. We even provided concrete evidence. There was Indian currency in Baluchistan. I’ll say it again this blame game has to stop from both sides if we want a stable region!
@wasim : so when we provide samples, they are tempered. However, when you provide Indian currency (links please), we are to treat them as Gospel. As you know, how difficult it is to plant Indian currency in Baloch.
Please treat our evidence as tempered. Whose evidence would you treat as NOT being tempered? US?
For the blame game to stop, Pakistan needs to take responsibility. Private Franchise owners refused to bid on Pakistani players for IPL and that got the whole Pakistani population up in arms and India (the state) was held directly responsible.
Non-state actors (according to you, for me the ISI is involved) create havoc in our country and your government washes its hands saying they are non-state actors. What are we suppose to do?
So my dear captain are you pointing out that Hindu fundamentalists, who target Samjhota are not terrorists? Perhaps Aditya also should also consider the involvement of RAW (established by their own investigative agencies) in terrorist activities not only in Pakistan but also in India.
I agree with you Javed, i think we should hand over to the Indians these badmash that have come from there and taken refuge in Pak… it’s not worth it!
Kalsoom…is this a typo?
““Vikas Mahekar, a member of the Maharashtra nationalist group the Shiv Sena, in Colaba: ”We immensely condone the attacks….””
Did Shiv Sena really CONDONE the blasts? Or was that meant to read CONDEMNED?
Thanks for the catch! I had pasted that directly from Guardian and just glanced at it. Made the change 🙂
Glad to help!
Isn’t that what that Pakistani “beauty queen” said about Mumbai 2008?
Yep:
https://changinguppakistan.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/miss-pakistan-world-progress-for-pakistani-womens-rights/
Ha! Yes!
The world and Indians regardless of their faith, beliefs and political affilations must strongly condemn the cowardly serial blasts on the innocent people by blood thirsty terror mongering brutes.
Our thoughts go to the families of the victims among whom there would be women who would have been widowed, children would have been orphaned and the elderly parents who would have lost the only support to them.
Indians have repeatedly displayed admirable maturity on such tragedies in the past and have refused to fall prey to the plans of those who want to spread communal hatred and push the country into sectarian violence.
Hope and pray that people of india will again maintain usual sobriety and fail the plans of the sadist cowards who enjoy death and destruction. Indian Government should deal with the culprits with iron fists but also instruct the police, media and political parties to refrain from witch hunting.
I know most of our Indians are corrupted.Just makes difference how big they or in other words how big the chance they get .But at least save your life.It could be one day your turn.
We invest huge lumps of dollars to buy advance war planes,advance missiles for defense .Please procure technology to stop terrorism, invest more on man power to stop RDX (explosives) entering India. Invest more for security than for defense.
Great corrupted Indian leaders! Is it so that if you don’t invest on man power for security because can’t make huge corruption out of it?
God never saves you got to act.
Thank you very much,I love this post.