India blames Mumbai attack on terrorists

By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

July 15, 2011 12 AM PT

Reporting from New Delhi — India’s home minister said Thursday that it was too early to blame any particular militant group or individual for the deadly blasts that struck Mumbai at rush hour a day earlier, but that the coordinated attack was the work of terrorists.

He also defended the intelligence services’ record in the run-up to the three explosions, adding that they had no information that an attack was coming.

“Whoever planned this attack worked in a very, very clandestine manner,” Palaniappan Chidambaram told reporters Thursday morning. “It’s not a failure of intelligence.”

The home minister also amended the casualty figures, saying 18 people had died rather than the 21 cited earlier by a top state official, with 131 hospitalized. Of the injured, 23 were seriously hurt, and some are in critical condition. A victim whose head was severed remains unidentified, Chidambaram said.

The explosions occurred in the crowded Dadar market area of central Mumbai, located near a major railway station; in the Zaveri Bazaar jewelry district; and in the Opera House neighborhood, one of the world’s busiest diamond districts. Investigators have determined that ammonium nitrate was used, and that the explosives were not triggered by any sophisticated remote device.

Chidambaram, who became home minister after the 2008 attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people and held the city hostage for 60 hours, has vowed to improve security and strengthen coordination between national and local law enforcement officials. On Thursday, he praised the people of Mumbai for their resilience and fortitude in getting back to work and rebuilding their city.

“People of Mumbai have responded splendidly,” he said in the televised news conference. “Today I find children are going to school and people are going back to work; that is the resolute response one expects from a city like Mumbai.”

But many citizens in Mumbai and beyond remained critical of their government for not protecting them.

“What I want to really tell the home minister is that this is a wake-up call,” said Hemant Mehta, 28, who was working in the Opera House neighborhood when it was attacked. “For a person, when he goes out of his house, he does not know if he will be safe, this is the pinnacle of shamelessness for the world’s largest democracy.”

The anger and discontent played out online as well. “Oh please! Would you stop harping about the ‘spirit of Mumbai’ already?” wrote Pearl Mistry Driver on Facebook. “This ‘spirit of Mumbai’ does not prevent such acts of terror.… People are afraid after a terrorist attack, but they’re more afraid of losing their jobs and their livelihood.”

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Anshul Rana in The Times’ New Delhi bureau contributed to this report.