07-11-2006, 07:48 PM
Reuters
Blasts hit trains in Mumbai, 15 reported dead
Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:56 AM EDT
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Explosions hit at least four packed commuter trains during the rush hour on Tuesday in India's financial hub, Mumbai, officials said.
The local CNN-IBN news channel said at least 15 people were killed in one of the blasts at Matunga station in central Mumbai.
"The blasts happened when the trains were most crowded," D.K Shankaran, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital said. "Ten to 15 people have been injured."
One television channel showed more than half-a-dozen injured people near the site of another blast in the Khar suburban station of Mumbai. One badly injured person lying near railway tracks was carried away by people using a long sheet of cloth.
<b>Police officials said two more explosions took place in the Santa Cruz and Mahim suburbs of the city.</b>
CNN-IBN reported a fifth blast had taken place but there was no official confirmation.
Dazed survivors were shown with wounds from injuries to heads, legs and hands on the railway station with little sign of any emergency medical aid.
<b>The Mumbai blasts came just hours after suspected Islamist militants killed seven people, six of them tourists, in a series of grenade attacks in Indian Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, police said, the most concerted targeting of civilians in months.</b>
Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since shortly after the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947, but both claim it in full.
Mumbai, a metropolis of about 17 million, has been hit by a series of bomb blasts in the past decade.
More than 250 people died in a string of bomb explosions in Bombay in 1993 for which authorities blamed the city's underworld criminal gangs.
Blasts hit trains in Mumbai, 15 reported dead
Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:56 AM EDT
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Explosions hit at least four packed commuter trains during the rush hour on Tuesday in India's financial hub, Mumbai, officials said.
The local CNN-IBN news channel said at least 15 people were killed in one of the blasts at Matunga station in central Mumbai.
"The blasts happened when the trains were most crowded," D.K Shankaran, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital said. "Ten to 15 people have been injured."
One television channel showed more than half-a-dozen injured people near the site of another blast in the Khar suburban station of Mumbai. One badly injured person lying near railway tracks was carried away by people using a long sheet of cloth.
<b>Police officials said two more explosions took place in the Santa Cruz and Mahim suburbs of the city.</b>
CNN-IBN reported a fifth blast had taken place but there was no official confirmation.
Dazed survivors were shown with wounds from injuries to heads, legs and hands on the railway station with little sign of any emergency medical aid.
<b>The Mumbai blasts came just hours after suspected Islamist militants killed seven people, six of them tourists, in a series of grenade attacks in Indian Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, police said, the most concerted targeting of civilians in months.</b>
Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since shortly after the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947, but both claim it in full.
Mumbai, a metropolis of about 17 million, has been hit by a series of bomb blasts in the past decade.
More than 250 people died in a string of bomb explosions in Bombay in 1993 for which authorities blamed the city's underworld criminal gangs.