Mumbai, India - At least 13 people were killed and 81 others injured Wednesday in explosions that rocked congested areas of India's financial capital, Mumbai, according to Prithviraj Chavan, the chief minister of the state of Maharashtra.
Police said the explosions occurred within minutes of one another in the Dadar, Opera House and Zaveri Bazaar areas, all busy commercial areas that were certainly teeming with people in the evening rush hour.
"The sound was absolutely deafening," said Hemant Mehta, who was in the Opera House area, near Mumbai's diamond market, a small epicenter of the city's economy.
Everyone looked up, he said. At first, some thought that heavy rains had caused a building to collapse. He told CNN-IBN that he was sure the sheer panic would cause a stampede.
The area in Dadar is near a train station used by millions of commuters. Zaveri Bazzar is near a Hindu temple, in which some people were injured, Mumbai police representative Nisar Tamboli told CNN-IBN. Zaveri Bazaar was one of the scenes of a twin bombing in 2003 that killed 54 people.
Authorities issued high security alerts for the Indian capital, New Delhi, and the eastern city of Kolkata, CNN-IBN reported.
Chhagan Bhujbal, the Maharashtra state's public works minister, told CNN-IBN that the intensity of the blasts was not known.
Witnesses told CNN-IBN that their window panes shook and they heard the thundering boom of the blasts. Workers who had not left their offices were advised not to venture out.
Additional information was not immediately available, but memories of November 2008 resurfaced for nervous Mumbaikers.
In that series of attacks, 10 armed Pakistanis stormed the city's main train station, two luxury hotels and a Jewish cultural center, killing 164 people.
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Showing posts with label Three explosions rocked India’s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Three explosions rocked India’s. Show all posts
Breaking News: Terrorism suspected after simultaneous blasts rock crowded Mumbai markets
MUMBAI, INDIA — Three explosions rocked India’s busy financial capital at rush-hour Wednesday, killing at least eight people and injuring 70 in what officials described as another terror strike on the city hit by militants nearly three years ago.
Television footage showed dozens of police officials, several of them armed, at the sites of the explosion and at least one car with its windows shattered.
A photograph showed victims of a blast at the Jhaveri Bazaar crowding into the back of a cargo truck to be taken to a hospital.
Indian media reported the Home Ministry had called the separate blasts in three busy locations a terror attack. No officials there could be independently reached for comment.
One blast was in the crowded neighbourhood of Dadar in central Mumbai. The others were at the bazaar, which is a famed jewellery market, and the busy business district of Opera House, both in southern Mumbai and several kilometres apart, a police official said.
The official in the city’s Police Control Room spoke on condition of anonymity because of office policy.
“It must be a bomb blast,” Chhagan Bhujbal, a state minister told a TV news channel.
All three blasts happened from 6:50 p.m. to 7 p.m., when all the neighbourhoods would have been packed with office workers and commuters.
The blasts — if confirmed as a terror strike — would mark the first major attack on Mumbai since 10 militants laid siege to India’s financial capital for 60 hours in November 2008.
That attack, which targeted two luxury hotels, a Jewish centre and a busy train station, killed 166 people and was blamed on Pakistan-based militant groups. The attacks escalated tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals and prompted them to suspend peace talks.
However, the talks have recently resumed.
Pakistan’s government expressed distress on the loss of lives and injuries soon after Wednesday’s blasts were reported.
Television footage showed dozens of police officials, several of them armed, at the sites of the explosion and at least one car with its windows shattered.
A photograph showed victims of a blast at the Jhaveri Bazaar crowding into the back of a cargo truck to be taken to a hospital.
Indian media reported the Home Ministry had called the separate blasts in three busy locations a terror attack. No officials there could be independently reached for comment.
One blast was in the crowded neighbourhood of Dadar in central Mumbai. The others were at the bazaar, which is a famed jewellery market, and the busy business district of Opera House, both in southern Mumbai and several kilometres apart, a police official said.
The official in the city’s Police Control Room spoke on condition of anonymity because of office policy.
“It must be a bomb blast,” Chhagan Bhujbal, a state minister told a TV news channel.
All three blasts happened from 6:50 p.m. to 7 p.m., when all the neighbourhoods would have been packed with office workers and commuters.
The blasts — if confirmed as a terror strike — would mark the first major attack on Mumbai since 10 militants laid siege to India’s financial capital for 60 hours in November 2008.
That attack, which targeted two luxury hotels, a Jewish centre and a busy train station, killed 166 people and was blamed on Pakistan-based militant groups. The attacks escalated tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals and prompted them to suspend peace talks.
However, the talks have recently resumed.
Pakistan’s government expressed distress on the loss of lives and injuries soon after Wednesday’s blasts were reported.
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