NEW DELHI — A day after a rush-hour triple bombing killed 18 people in Mumbai, many Indians asked angrily whether their government had learned any lessons since the last deadly attack in the city in 2008.
“Why is Mumbai being targeted again and again? Trains, bus stops, markets, hotels — nothing is safe anymore. After the last attack, the government promised us that this will never happen again,” said Swati Kamat, 30-year-old corporate executive, in a telephone interview. “I feel sad, but I feel much more anger than sadness. I am angry at the government, at the police, at our system.”
Indians rail at government after Mumbai blasts - The Washington Post
The anger was palpable on the streets, in offices and in television debates Thursday. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh echoed the mood when he arrived in Mumbai, the country’s financial capital.
“I understand the shock and outrage of the people of Mumbai. I share their pain, anguish and anger,” Singh said. He promised that his government would “relentlessly pursue the perpetrators.”
But on Thursday, police officials said that no conclusive leads had emerged from a preliminary probe into the blasts.
“Nothing conclusive can be said with confidence about which militant group was behind these attacks. But it is not a blind investigation, either,” said U.K. Bansal, a senior internal security official in the Home Ministry in New Delhi.
No group so far has asserted responsibility.
The bombs exploded Wednesday evening in marketplaces and other crowded areas of Mumbai, including a street lined with jewelry shops. At least 133 people were injured, with 23 in serious condition.
Forensic teams combed through the rain-drenched blast sites looking for evidence, and examined the grainy images captured on surveillance cameras from the streets. But with monsoon rains falling in Mumbai at the time of the attack, the faces of many of the people captured on camera were obscured by umbrellas. The rain also delayed analysis of potential evidence taken from the areas.
Officials described the bombs as improvised explosive devices, made with ammonium nitrate and triggered by a timer mechanism, and said they were concealed in trash under a cart; on top of a billboard at a bus stop; and under an umbrella near a motorcycle.
Police also found some remnants of wires and a battery on one of the bodies found near a blast site. Bansal told reporters that the possibility of the involvement of a suicide bomber “is not ruled out.”
But for the first time, New Delhi officials did not rush to blame neighboring Pakistan or any Islamist group.
“We are not pointing our fingers, at this stage, at this group or that group,” Palaniappan Chidambaram said at a news conference in Mumbai on Thursday morning. “All angles will be examined without any pre-determination. All groups hostile to India are on the radar.”
Ongoing investigations into several recent attacks previously attributed to Muslim organizations have revealed the involvement of radical Hindu groups.
One senior intelligence official in New Delhi said that the explosions bore the signature of the Indian Mujahideen, an indigenous group of young, radicalized Muslims who say India treats Muslims unfairly. The group has been accused in several bomb attacks in Indian cities in 2007 and 2008.
Other officials, however, said it woule be premature to name that group as a suspect.
The entire city of Mumbai was under a security alert, and commuters were required to pass through police checkpoints in various parts of the city. But schools and offices opened for business Thursday morning.
Terrorists have targeted Mumbai multiple times since 2000, including a siege in November 2008 that killed 166 people. A lone surviving gunman, of Pakistani origin, was convicted in that case on charges of terrorism, criminal conspiracy and waging war against the Indian state.
The jewelry market targeted in Wednesday’s attack, Zaveri Bazaar, also was a site of bombings in 2003 and 1993.
After the siege in 2008, New Delhi suspended talks with neighboring Pakistan. But the two nuclear-armed rivals resumed dialogue earlier this year, mostly because of prodding by U.S. government officials. The next round of talks is set to take place in two weeks.
Speaking by telephone from the Saifee hospital in Mumbai, 20-year-old migrant Dinesh Kumar said he lost a leg in the blast.
“I left my village and came to Mumbai just a month ago to earn a livelihood. I don’t know this city at all. I had just started working as a laborer in a small shop,” Kumar said. “Some strangers carried my bleeding body to the hospital. I don’t know where to go, what I will do now.”
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