09-09-2006, 12:59 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Black Friday in Malegaon </b>
Pioneer.com
TN Raghunatha | Mumbai
<b>38 dead, over 100 hurt; curfew clamped</b>
Terrorists struck once again in Maharashtra on Friday, killing at least 38 people and injuring over 100 others - several of them seriously - in three powerful explosions that rocked the crowded areas in front of a mosque and the adjoining "Bada Kabristan" at Mushaira Chowk in the powerloom town of Malegaon in Nashik district.
Less than two months after they claimed nearly 200 lives and left a trail of destruction by engineering serial blasts on Mumbai's suburban trains, merchants of death ripped apart the fragile and communally-sensitive town of Malegaon in north Maharashtra through three blasts on Friday afternoon - all within a brief span of six minutes.Â
Not wanting to take chances, the authorities swiftly imposed curfew in the Muslim-dominated town, which has witnessed four major communal riots in the past - for an indefinite period. Apart from the existing police force, four companies of State Reserve Police (SRP) were rushed to Malegaon, within hours after the blasts.
Following the serial blasts at Malegaon, a red alert was sounded all over Maharashtra, with the State Government keeping 26 companies of Central paramilitary forces on standby - which had been sent to Maharashtra for maintenance of law and order during the just-concluded Ganesh festivities - as a precautionary measure.
Though initially there were conflicting versions as to the exact number of blasts, the authorities confirmed that there had been two blasts. However, eyewitnesses insisted that there had been three blasts and not two as had been stated officially. Some unconfirmed reports suggested later on Friday night that there had in all been four blasts.
The first of the powerful explosions took place at around 1.50 pm at the crowded Mushaira Chowk, soon after 3,000-odd devout Muslims offered prayers at the Noorani Masjid. Eyewitnesses said a powerful explosive had been planted on a bicycle parked at the chowk. Minutes later, two more blasts rocked an equally crowded area in front of the Bada Kabristan, located next to the masjid. All the blasts were believed to have been triggered by remote-control devices.
Sadly enough, Malegaon had been preparing itself for "Laylat-ul-baraat (shabb-e-baraat)-night of salvation," when the terrorists struck. (Laylat-ul Baraa'ah in Persian, as well as in Urdu, is called shabb-e-baraat. It is the night of seeking pardon and repenting to Almighty Allah, remembering past sins and sincerely making up one's mind that one will never commit sins in the future). In fact, scores of devout Muslims had taken out a procession, ahead of the all-night prayers scheduled to be held at the Noorani Masjid.
The death toll in Friday's serial blasts was mounting by the hour. By Friday night, the blast toll had gone up to 38, with the likelihood of the toll mounting further later in the night. Of the 100-odd people injured in the blasts, the condition of more than a score of them was said to be serious. The injured persons were undergoing treatment at Wadia, Faran, Ali Akbar and rural hospitals, all at Malegaon, and district civil hospital at the neighbouring Dhule town.
Engineered as they were at Malegaon, there lay a calculated strategy on the part of the militant outfits behind Friday's terror act, given the sensitive nature of the situation in the powerloom town. Located 310 km from Mumbai, Malegaon is one of the three communally-sensitive towns in Maharashtra; two others being Aurangabad and Bhiwandi. Malegaon, a town where nearly 75 per cent of the eight lakh people are Muslims, has had four communal riots in the past - in 1962, 1982, 1992 and 2001.
Significantly enough, <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Malegaon town has been a safe haven for functionaries of banned SIMI and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT). </span>So much so that early this year, there had been seizure of explosives and rounding up of suspected militants from this town. No wonder that the authorities realise that any letup in handling of the post-blasts situation would only result in a communal riot in the town and likely backlash in other sensitive areas in the State.
While the top officials, including Chief Secretary DK Shankaran and State Director General of Police PS Pasricha, monitored the situation in Malegaon on a minute-to-minute basis from Mumbai, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and his deputy RR Patil, who handles the State Home portfolio, rushed to the powerloom town on Friday evening. Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil is scheduled to visit the town on Saturday morning.
Deshmukh and Patil made separate appeals to the people of Malegaon and other sensitive parts of the State not to indulge in any such act that would trigger communal trouble in the wake of Friday's serial blasts.
Meanwhile, a 12-member ATS team from Mumbai left for Malegaon to help the local police in their investigations into the serial blasts there.
Based on the preliminary reports, experts here felt that the explosives used to <b>trigger serial blasts at Malegaon on Friday were akin to the crude device </b>that exploded on January 28, 2003 near the Vile Parle railway station in north-west Mumbai on the eve of arrival of then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Mumbai. The Vile Parle blast was one of those blasts that took place between December 2002-January 2003.
Explosive expert veteran Col (Retd) MP Chaudhury, who raised Anti-Hijack Squad (which is known as the National Security Guard) said that what he could guage from the TV-footage of the Malegaon blasts was that<b> the explosive used was a "cycle bomb". "It is a clearly local explosive triggered to create drive a wedge between two communities," Col Chaudhury said.</b>
Col Chaudhury, who has trained commandos for the Maharashtra Police and C-60, the Anti-Naxalite Wing, said <b>that material like sulphur, potassium chlorate and ammonium nitrate might have been used with local detonators.</b>
<b>Malegaon hit the headlines in May this year, when the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) seized huge a cache of arms and ammunition during an intensive drive against suspected LeT and SIMI activists operating in north Maharashtra and neighbouring Marathwada regions.</b>
During the raids conducted at Malegaon, Nashik, Aurangabad and Beed, the cache of arms and ammunition seized by ATS included 43 kgs of deadly RDX, 16 AK-47 assault rifles, which might have come from Afghanistan, 50 Chinese-made grenades and over 3,200 rounds. The cache of 43 kgs of RDX came as a surprise to the Mumbai Police, considering that the seized quantity of RDX was lesser than 40 kgs used to trigger the serial blasts in 1993, which left 257 people dead and 713 others injured.
<b>High noon</b>
Explosions at about 1.50 pm rock Bada Kabristan and Mushaira Market in textile town
Blasts rip through a large crowd gathered at the graveyard for shabb-e-baraat prayers
Several children wounded, many of them seriously, as stampede breaks out after the blasts
Angry residents pelt stones at policemen, preventing them from reaching the site as mob lays siege to Azadnagar police station
Most of the injured evacuated to Wadia Hospital and other nearby hospitals, critically injured moved to Nashik
3,000 Paramilitary forces rushed to Malegaon
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pioneer.com
TN Raghunatha | Mumbai
<b>38 dead, over 100 hurt; curfew clamped</b>
Terrorists struck once again in Maharashtra on Friday, killing at least 38 people and injuring over 100 others - several of them seriously - in three powerful explosions that rocked the crowded areas in front of a mosque and the adjoining "Bada Kabristan" at Mushaira Chowk in the powerloom town of Malegaon in Nashik district.
Less than two months after they claimed nearly 200 lives and left a trail of destruction by engineering serial blasts on Mumbai's suburban trains, merchants of death ripped apart the fragile and communally-sensitive town of Malegaon in north Maharashtra through three blasts on Friday afternoon - all within a brief span of six minutes.Â
Not wanting to take chances, the authorities swiftly imposed curfew in the Muslim-dominated town, which has witnessed four major communal riots in the past - for an indefinite period. Apart from the existing police force, four companies of State Reserve Police (SRP) were rushed to Malegaon, within hours after the blasts.
Following the serial blasts at Malegaon, a red alert was sounded all over Maharashtra, with the State Government keeping 26 companies of Central paramilitary forces on standby - which had been sent to Maharashtra for maintenance of law and order during the just-concluded Ganesh festivities - as a precautionary measure.
Though initially there were conflicting versions as to the exact number of blasts, the authorities confirmed that there had been two blasts. However, eyewitnesses insisted that there had been three blasts and not two as had been stated officially. Some unconfirmed reports suggested later on Friday night that there had in all been four blasts.
The first of the powerful explosions took place at around 1.50 pm at the crowded Mushaira Chowk, soon after 3,000-odd devout Muslims offered prayers at the Noorani Masjid. Eyewitnesses said a powerful explosive had been planted on a bicycle parked at the chowk. Minutes later, two more blasts rocked an equally crowded area in front of the Bada Kabristan, located next to the masjid. All the blasts were believed to have been triggered by remote-control devices.
Sadly enough, Malegaon had been preparing itself for "Laylat-ul-baraat (shabb-e-baraat)-night of salvation," when the terrorists struck. (Laylat-ul Baraa'ah in Persian, as well as in Urdu, is called shabb-e-baraat. It is the night of seeking pardon and repenting to Almighty Allah, remembering past sins and sincerely making up one's mind that one will never commit sins in the future). In fact, scores of devout Muslims had taken out a procession, ahead of the all-night prayers scheduled to be held at the Noorani Masjid.
The death toll in Friday's serial blasts was mounting by the hour. By Friday night, the blast toll had gone up to 38, with the likelihood of the toll mounting further later in the night. Of the 100-odd people injured in the blasts, the condition of more than a score of them was said to be serious. The injured persons were undergoing treatment at Wadia, Faran, Ali Akbar and rural hospitals, all at Malegaon, and district civil hospital at the neighbouring Dhule town.
Engineered as they were at Malegaon, there lay a calculated strategy on the part of the militant outfits behind Friday's terror act, given the sensitive nature of the situation in the powerloom town. Located 310 km from Mumbai, Malegaon is one of the three communally-sensitive towns in Maharashtra; two others being Aurangabad and Bhiwandi. Malegaon, a town where nearly 75 per cent of the eight lakh people are Muslims, has had four communal riots in the past - in 1962, 1982, 1992 and 2001.
Significantly enough, <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Malegaon town has been a safe haven for functionaries of banned SIMI and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT). </span>So much so that early this year, there had been seizure of explosives and rounding up of suspected militants from this town. No wonder that the authorities realise that any letup in handling of the post-blasts situation would only result in a communal riot in the town and likely backlash in other sensitive areas in the State.
While the top officials, including Chief Secretary DK Shankaran and State Director General of Police PS Pasricha, monitored the situation in Malegaon on a minute-to-minute basis from Mumbai, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and his deputy RR Patil, who handles the State Home portfolio, rushed to the powerloom town on Friday evening. Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil is scheduled to visit the town on Saturday morning.
Deshmukh and Patil made separate appeals to the people of Malegaon and other sensitive parts of the State not to indulge in any such act that would trigger communal trouble in the wake of Friday's serial blasts.
Meanwhile, a 12-member ATS team from Mumbai left for Malegaon to help the local police in their investigations into the serial blasts there.
Based on the preliminary reports, experts here felt that the explosives used to <b>trigger serial blasts at Malegaon on Friday were akin to the crude device </b>that exploded on January 28, 2003 near the Vile Parle railway station in north-west Mumbai on the eve of arrival of then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Mumbai. The Vile Parle blast was one of those blasts that took place between December 2002-January 2003.
Explosive expert veteran Col (Retd) MP Chaudhury, who raised Anti-Hijack Squad (which is known as the National Security Guard) said that what he could guage from the TV-footage of the Malegaon blasts was that<b> the explosive used was a "cycle bomb". "It is a clearly local explosive triggered to create drive a wedge between two communities," Col Chaudhury said.</b>
Col Chaudhury, who has trained commandos for the Maharashtra Police and C-60, the Anti-Naxalite Wing, said <b>that material like sulphur, potassium chlorate and ammonium nitrate might have been used with local detonators.</b>
<b>Malegaon hit the headlines in May this year, when the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) seized huge a cache of arms and ammunition during an intensive drive against suspected LeT and SIMI activists operating in north Maharashtra and neighbouring Marathwada regions.</b>
During the raids conducted at Malegaon, Nashik, Aurangabad and Beed, the cache of arms and ammunition seized by ATS included 43 kgs of deadly RDX, 16 AK-47 assault rifles, which might have come from Afghanistan, 50 Chinese-made grenades and over 3,200 rounds. The cache of 43 kgs of RDX came as a surprise to the Mumbai Police, considering that the seized quantity of RDX was lesser than 40 kgs used to trigger the serial blasts in 1993, which left 257 people dead and 713 others injured.
<b>High noon</b>
Explosions at about 1.50 pm rock Bada Kabristan and Mushaira Market in textile town
Blasts rip through a large crowd gathered at the graveyard for shabb-e-baraat prayers
Several children wounded, many of them seriously, as stampede breaks out after the blasts
Angry residents pelt stones at policemen, preventing them from reaching the site as mob lays siege to Azadnagar police station
Most of the injured evacuated to Wadia Hospital and other nearby hospitals, critically injured moved to Nashik
3,000 Paramilitary forces rushed to Malegaon
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->