India: Terrorists Behind Train Blasts

At Least 147 Dead As Bombs Rip Through Bombay Commuter Trains

(CBS/AP) 
A senior Bombay police official, P.S. Pasricha, said the explosions were part of a well-coordinated attack. Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra state, where Bombay is located, said bombs had caused all seven blasts.

Police reportedly carried out raids across the country following the Bombay blasts. One TV station said a suspect was in custody.

Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters that authorities had had some information that an attack was coming, "but place and time was not known."

The bombings occurred after the stock markets ended. The commercial capital suffered similar serial blasts in 1993 that included the Bombay Stock Exchange, killing more than 250 people.

Tuesday evening's first explosion hit a train at a railway station in the northwestern suburb of Khar, said a police officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Other blasts followed down the line of the western railway at the Mahim, Bandra, Matunga, Borivili, Mira Road and Jogeshwari stations. Some passengers reportedly jumped from speeding trains in panic.

India's CNN-IBN television news, which had a reporter aboard one train, said a blast struck a first-class compartment as the train was moving, ripping through the compartment and killing more than a dozen people.

The Press Trust of India, citing railway officials, said all the blasts had hit first-class cars.

Pranay Prabhakar, the spokesman for the Western Railway, said all train service had been suspended and appealed to the public to stay away from stations in the city of 16 million people — India's principal port on the Arabian Sea.

New York said it is beefing up its transit security in response to the attacks. The New York Police Department said it is increasing the number of random bag searches and adding hundreds of extra officers in the subways during the evening rush hour. The department stressed that the measures are precautionary, and that there had been no specific threats to New York.

New York's two senators say the India bombings show an urgent need for federal protection of American subways, buses and tunnels. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton call the transit systems the "soft underbelly" of homeland security.

In Washington, two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the events were still unfolding said it was too early to know for certain what group was behind the Bombay attacks. But both officials said they were likely part of the sectarian violence over Kashmir.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the subcontinent was partitioned upon independence from Britain in 1947, two over Kashmir.

Dozens of militant groups have been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, demanding the mostly Muslim region's independence, or its merger with Pakistan.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry late Tuesday strongly condemned the Bombay attacks.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf offered condolences over the loss of life, the Foreign Ministry said, adding: "Terrorism is a bane of our times and it must be condemned, rejected and countered effectively and comprehensively."

New Delhi has accused Pakistan of training, arming and funding the militants. Islamabad insists it only offers the rebels diplomatic and moral support.

Accusations of Pakistani involvement in a 2001 attack on India's parliament put the nuclear-armed rivals on the brink of a fourth war. But since then, Pakistan and India embarked on a peace process aimed at resolving their differences, including their conflicting claims to all of Jammu-Kashmir.