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| July 11, 2006 | Tuesday | Jumadi-ul-Sani 14, 1427 |
Updated round-the-clock, with major updates
Bombs hit trains in Mumbai, at least 163 dead MUMBAI, July 11 (Reuters) At least 163 people were killed and hundreds injured in seven bomb explosions on packed commuter trains and stations during rush hour on Tuesday in Mumbai, India's financial hub, officials said. City police chief A.N. Roy said 163 people were killed while Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said 300 people were injured. "It is a bomb blast. We are not sure if it is RDX or not," Roy said, referring to the possible use of high-powered plastic explosives. Commuters fled suburban rail stations in panic after the explosions and mobile phone lines were jammed. Television pictures showed twisted rail carriages and people in bloodstained clothes carrying dead and wounded on stretchers. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. "We have doused the flames at all the blast sites and now we are taking the injured to hospitals," Mumbai's fire services chief said. Dazed survivors with wounds from injuries to heads, legs and hands waited at railway stations, with little sign of any emergency medical aid. One critically injured person lying near the railway tracks was carried away by people using a long sheet of cloth. "We heard a loud blast in one of the train compartments. When we rushed there and looked, we saw people with severed limbs and grievous injuries," one witness told the CNN-IBN news channel, standing in a blood-spattered coach. "There were no police or railway people to help." Officials said five trains had been hit and two stations. "All suburban train services have been suspended and search operations are going on," the chairman of India's Railway Board, J.P. Batra, told reporters. Indian Prime Minister immediately called the home (interior) minister and other top officials to an emergency meeting to discuss the violence. "Security has been definitely put on high alert," Home Secretary V.K.Duggal told reporters ahead of the meeting. The Mumbai blasts came just hours after seven people, six of them tourists, were killed in a series of grenade attacks in Srinagar, police said. Police in New Delhi said they were on the lookout for more violence. "We have mobilised our entire forces who are conducting checks in all areas such as buses, bus stops, train stations and religious institutions," a deputy commissioner of police for South Delhi said. (First Posted @ 19:06 PST Updated @ 21:44 PST)
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