Mumbai targeted once again - Triple Blasts

When I received a phone call from Delhi about Mumbai blasts, at around 7 PM, yesterday, I didn't believe it. Instead of asking my parents to switch on the News Channels, I went on the Internet. The results showed up. My heart sank, it was true. Once again, the common man paid the price.

Even as am writing this, the death toll is rising; the latest being 22 people dead and around 131 people injured, out of which 26 have been discharged on account of minor injuries. The State Government has offered INR 5 lacs ( approx. $11,235 USD) to the families of the victims who have lost their lives. Home Minister P. Chidambaram categorically stated that there was no failure of "Intelligence" and "Intelligence" is being gathered every second, every day, but the State Police had nothing to be suspicious about.

The three blasts occurred at Zaveri Bazaar, Opera House and near Dadar Station. Mumbai is callously famous for being crowded: it has more population than two Scandinavian countries combined; but these three places are more crowded, relatively speaking. The timing also has a lot to do with the proposed effect: the blasts occurred within a time window of 10-15 mins, from 18:55 hrs to 19:15 hrs. This is the "peak" time in Mumbai, meaning, the time where commuters are traveling back to home from work. Whosoever planned these attacks very well knew what this could mean. Also one of the bombs, I think it was the one in Dadar area, was placed close to a School. Children leave school at around 6 PM every day.

Lot of people offered support right from updating statuses in Twitter and FaceBook to actually being on the scene of the accident and helping injured people to ambulances and vans. The newspapers today are ... filled with disturbing images.

The State Government and the Home Ministry are yet to identify the perpetrator of these attacks; meaning we are clueless as of now. Indian Mujahideen (IM) is the prime suspect, though. DNA (Newspaper) stated that Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal from Karnataka head the IM group. Intelligence reports that the brothers are hiding in Bangladesh. A Central Intelligence Officer stated that after 26/ 11 attacks (Blasts in Mumbai local trains, casualties of about 164, and more than 300 injured) and increased pressure from both US and India, Pakistan banned LeT (Lashkar e Taiba) but the LeT didn't stop working; they merely regrouped under Jamaat ud Dawa. Both Jamaat ud Dawa and IM are religious-cum- terror outfits in the country. You can get more accurate and updated information on various news portals.

Most of the people in Mumbai are shocked and angry that yet another attack has been directed at the largest populated city and the commercial capital in the country. The Home Minister stated that the attacks were not aimed at foreign nationals, but only at common people, hence the tourists had nothing to be afraid of. He also mentioned that most of the lanes in Zaveri Bazaar are very small, and so it was not possible to conduct rescue operations smoothly. Poor infrastructure is not the fault of the common man, Mr. Home Minister.

Please register at www.bloodaid.com to help the victims with timely blood donations.

In India, it is a norm to blame Pakistani outfits in case of any "terror attacks". Communal tension and riots may be fuelled because of this perception. Hence the Government has appealed to the citizens to stay calm.

Some of the people are counting their blessings as the estimated damage of the attack was not as damaging as the earlier attacks on the Taj (26/ 11) and the Mumbai train blasts. Even though the explosives were improvised, the intensity was still mediocre, relatively speaking. This means that the perpetrators might plan another attack, hence the city is on high alert.

For P. Chidambaram's Press disclosure please see the videos below.

Please note that the objective of this blog post is to provide information and basic deductive premises, and not to perpetrate or fuel any tension or hurt the sentiments of any person.