The serial blasts in Mumbai left 18 people dead and over 100 injured. In this photo, policemen look for clues ar the Zaveri Bazaar blast site
At 6.54 p.m. on July 13, a bomb in a motorcycle tore into Mumbai's 150-year-old Zaveri Bazaar, killing five people instantly. As pushcarts selling food were scattered and bodies lay mutilated, Hiten, a businessman, recounted how he carried the severed head of a victim to the nearby Gokuldas Tejpal Hospital. He tried, but couldn't find the body parts.
A minute later, at 6.55 p.m., a tiffin box exploded, resounding through Prasad Chambers, Opera House, where diamond traders gather every evening to discuss the day's business. The blast, which killed nine, left trader Chirag Vora shaken. "It shattered the window panes. The diamonds on my tray were everywhere," he says.
At 7.05 p.m., yet another bomb went off, this time at Hanuman Mandir at Dadar's Kabutarkhana, where people shop for household goods. As injured people scrambled for cover amid splattered blood and damaged vehicles, Indulal Shah, who owns a sweet shop in the area, could only say: "It took just a second. Everything changed. The usual chaos became a desperate panic."
It is a deadly litany, all too familiar for a city of walking wounded. The city that never sleeps has become one that now sleeps in fear. The city of number-crunchers has now become a cold statistic. Twenty-one people were killed and 131 injured. Fourteen blasts in 18 years have exposed chinks that have now become embarrassingly routine. As have the platitudes. Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan made the startling discovery that the attacks proved "terror groups are active and able to strike at will". Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram flew down to Mumbai with South Mumbai MP and newly minted minister Milind Deora only to declare "every city of India is still vulnerable to a coordinated attack by terrorists". Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik, still to explain the cosy relationship between his officers and the city's underworld dons, announced that some "terror elements" were involved in the attack.
The timing and method used in the three blasts point to banned terrorist organisation Indian Mujahideen (IM), an offshoot of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). Though the group became prominent in 2008 when it claimed responsibility for bomb blasts at Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Delhi and Assam, it has been active since 2003. Safdar Nagori, a resident of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, is believed to be the architect of the IM. He launched the organisation for supposedly religious and academic purposes. Later, he became leader of the faction that opted for armed struggle. Now, Iqbal Bhatkal and his brother Riyaz run the organisation from Karachi, Pakistan.
The blasts took place two days after the city observed the fifth anniversary of seven blasts in local trains on July 11, 2006 that killed 209 people, in which the IM was allegedly involved. A police officer points to the similarity between the timing and explosives in both the serial blasts. "Ammonium nitrate was used in the train blasts and the blasts took place during 6.30 p.m. to 7 p.m.," he says. Chidambaram confirmed that ammonium nitrate was used in the July 13 blasts as well.
Mumbai's angry citizens, tired of having their "resilience" thrown at their faces and negotiating every day with fear, have had enough. They've had enough of terror tourism. And they can do without any more salutes to their battered "spirit". As Jignesh Shah, MD, Multi-Commodities Exchange, says, "It's time for every one, police, politician and the corporate, to devise a plan so we don't have to see such horror pictures on television time and again. Why again Mumbai, why?" Its citizens want action. They want answers. They want to know why the police took half-anhour to arrive at Khau Gali in Zaveri Bazaar though the jewellery market has three police posts. They want to know why Mumbai Police had no warning of such an attack. And they want to know what the bosses-sitting in the Mumbai Police headquarters at Crawford Market, just 1 km away- have done to recommendations made after 156 died and 280 were injured in the 26/11 attacks.
They want to know why the police continue to miss the plot. One of the key recommendations of the twomember Ram Pradhan Committee that went into the lapses of the 26/11 attacks was that the force should be radically transformed. "Attacks will keep occurring until we professionalise our police forces," says a senior IPS officer. "It makes me feel worse when you know the solution and are able to do nothing." Just a day before the strikes, the Mumbai Police were arguing in the Bombay High Court against handing the Jyotirmoy Dey investigation to the CBI.
The blasts were a failure of predictive intelligence, the ability to tell where the next attack would come from. It calls for huge investments in human intelligence and trained manpower. A far cry in a state which has the largest number of vacancies- posts of 49,000 policemen are yet to be filled. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in Maharashtra, formed in 2004, has just 300 personnel despite a sanctioned strength of three times as many men. "The police have failed to instil fear into the hearts of the bombers. They have been unable to maintain a constant presence to deter them," says Colonel M.P. Chaudhary (retired), a former advisor to the city police.
The blasts took the central agencies by surprise. "There were no symptoms, no alerts, not a whiff that an attack was in the offing," a senior Intelligence Bureau (IB) official said in Delhi. It could well have been that the agencies were lulled into a sense of complacency. Since 26/11, there has been just one significant attack, the February 13, 2010 bombing of Pune's German Bakery which killed 17 persons and was traced to the IM. Analysts blamed the slump in attacks to Pakistan's problems that seem to have kept it from fomenting terror attacks within India. One official admits that the IB's Multi-Agency Centre- revitalised after 26/11 attacks for India's 14 agencies to meet every day to pool information-had drifted into discussing virtual attacks in the cyberworld. The post-26/11 drift was everywhere. Key terrorism-related proposals like the National Intelligence Grid ran into fierce resistance at the Centre. The home ministry project that aimed at integrating existing databases like bank accounts and financial transactions to track terror suspects, got conditional approval only last month, 18 months after the project had been mooted.
Add to it Mumbai's inherent vulnerability that makes it a soft target. A 468 sq-km linear city, it is less than a third the size of Delhi's 1,483 sq km. But it is the country's most densely packed metropolis. It has 29,042 people per sq km to Delhi's 9,294 people per sq km, making policing difficult for its 60,000-strong force. Its local trains carry 69 lakh passengers every day, more than half of Indian Railways' daily capacity, and are among the most crowded transport systems in the world. The buses in Mumbai carry 45 lakh passengers every day.
Its coastline is open to attack, as 26/11 proved. Its water pipelines are susceptible to sabotage. The pipelines are surrounded by around 35,000 shanties and shockingly, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) does not have a record of people staying there. Security experts have often warned that anti-social elements can break the water pipelines and contaminate the water. The Bombay High Court in 2009 had rapped the BMC for compromising citizens' health by allowing slums around water pipes. The BMC started a demolition drive after that but could not clear the slums completely. Former IPS officer Y.P. Singh says, "Mumbai is the perfect advertisement for any terrorist organisation that wants to make an impact. Seasonal downpours, which come in the way of effective policing, present the best opportunity."
In such a situation of total paralysis, fear spreads fast. Paranoia is contagious, and in a multimedia age, it gets amplified quickly. Almost as soon as the blasts tore apart Mumbai, an SMS went viral in Delhi claiming bombs were discovered in Saket and Defence Colony. Someone spread the rumour that it was Ajmal Kasab's birthday. Then someone else tweeted that the date was actually September 13, and then corrected it yet again. A fourth "bomb" was found to be a bag with wires. Celebrities vented their anguish on twitter, ordinary citizens tried calling frantic families.
At the ground floor lobby in Phoenix Mills, a popular mall in central Mumbai, a hush suddenly descended on shoppers making the best of discount season. As news of the blasts flashed on a TV screen, nearly everyone whipped out their phones to contact friends and family, only to find the network jammed. A young shopper voiced what the others were thinking. "Damn. This city is getting really dangerous to live in."
Especially certain areas. Terror has struck Zaveri Bazaar with frightening regularity. Known as much for its jewellery as its Marwari kachori, it was first targeted on March 12, 1993, when a bomb was detected in the area. Later, it became clear that the bomb was part of the series that shook the city. On August 25, 2003, 36 people died in a powerful blast.
Mumbai's citizens are tired of such bad news and terrible memories. Ask Hemen Kapadia, a top stockbroker. He was in the BSE building in 1993 when the blasts happened. Every time he hears of another such explosion, it sends chills down his spine. He has just one question: "Can someone tell me who is in charge here?" It's a question whose answer needs to be given. Now.
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