At least 40 people were killed and more than 125 injured in a series of explosions in Mumbai on Monday morning.
Witnesses reported as many as four separate explosions. One was near the Gateway of India, a famous Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) seafront landmark and tourist attraction built by the British to commemorate the 1911 visit of King George V.
”The building we were in shook and we heard a loud noise,” said Ingrid Alva, a public relations consultant who works near the gateway.
”I rushed out and saw the crowds at the Gateway of India … we saw some body parts lying around before we were told to move away by the police.”
The nearby Taj Mahal hotel was badly damaged in the blast.
”Everyone over here is pretty shaken,” one of its staff said. ”At least four or five people were injured, their legs and hands bleeding. Two or three guys were unconscious. They were all mainly street peddlers.”
A second explosion, also in southern Mumbai, took place near the Pydhonie police station. A police officer said that two more bombs had gone off in the Zaveri Bazaar, a crowded market of jewellery stores.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the bombings, but they are thought to be linked to the publication of an archaeological report on the religious site of Ayodhya in northern India, which is claimed by both Muslims and Hindus.
The dispute has been blamed for previous explosions in Mumbai.
In March, a bomb attack on a Mumbai train, which police blamed on Islamist militants, killed 11 people and wounded 64 others.
That explosion came a day after the 10th anniversary of a series of bombings in Mumbai — also blamed on Islamists — which killed more than 250 people and injured 1 000.
Police say the bombings were in retaliation for the 1992 destruction of the16th-century Ayodhya mosque by Hindu mobs, and to avenge Muslim deaths in riots that followed.
Some Hindus claim the mosque was built centuries ago on the ruins of a Hindu temple that marked the birthplace of the god Rama.
The report on the Ayodhya site, issued by the Indian government’s archaeological agency, indicated there had been some sort of ancient structure at the site, lawyers for both sides said, though they disagreed on whether it said there had actually been a temple.
The report has not been released to the public or the media. — Guardian Newspapers 2003