Mumbai, India: Three simultaneous blasts rocked India's financial hub Mumbai Wednesday evening, killing at least 21 people and injuring more than 100 in what the government called a "coordinated" terror strike.
UAE condemns terror attacks in Mumbai
The UAE vehemently condemned the terrorist attacks that hit India's financial capital of Mumbai, killing and wounding scores of people, UAE official news agency WAM reported.
In a statement on Wednesday, Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister, said: "The UAE condemns this terrible, appalling crime and affirms its full solidarity and standing with the Government of India in confronting these criminal acts."
Shaikh Abdullah offered heartfelt condolences to the families of innocent victims and wished speedy recovery to those injured.
Three blasts
Mumbai police confirmed three blasts, one in central Mumbai and two in the south of the city, which is still scarred by the militant attacks of 2008 blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
"This was a coordinated attack by terrorists," Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters in New Delhi.
"The entire city of Mumbai has been put on high alert. I would appeal to the people of Mumbai and people all over the country to remain calm," Chidambaram said, adding that federal investigative teams were being rushed to the city.
The targets included a predominantly middle class residential area, a wholesale gold market and a building housing diamond traders and jewellery shops, with the explosions reported at rush-hour, at around 6:30pm (1300 GMT).
"It is clear that the attackers wanted to hurt as many as people as possible. A lot of people are injured," a minister in the Maharashtra state government, Chhagan Bhujbal, told reporters.
In November 2008, 10 militants attacked multiple targets in Mumbai, including five-star hotels, in a deadly assault that killed 166 people.
India blamed the the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the assault and broke off a peace dialogue with Islamabad. Talks between the two nuclear-armed rivals only resumed earlier this year.
Car bomb
Eyewitnesses outside the diamond trader building in South Mumbai said a car bomb had exploded at around 6:45 pm (1315 GMT) when the area was packed with office people returning home from work.
"There were lots of people badly injured. We don't know how many are dead but it was a very big blast," Nimesh Mehta, 38, who runs a local food stall, told AFP.
"It was a cowardly attack," said Ravinder Singh, 48, the owner of a spare parts shop. "These were innocent people. Poor as well as rich."
The last major bombing incident in India was in February last year in the western city of Pune, when a blast at a packed restaurant killed nine people including one foreigner.
In 2006, a series of seven high-powered blasts on suburban trains in Mumbai killed 187 commuters and left 800 injured - an attack that India also blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
Pakistan condemns attack
Islamabad swiftly condemned Wednesday's attacks in a statement issued by the Pakistani foreign ministry.
Pakistan's president and prime minister on Wednesday condemned multiple blasts in the Indian city of Mumbai, which killed two people and injured 100 others.
Three separate blasts hit the city, India's commercial capital, according to the Indian home ministry.
"President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the government and the people of Pakistan, have condemned the blasts in Mumbai and expressed distress on the loss of lives and injuries," the Pakistan foreign ministry said in a statement.
"The President and the Prime Minister have expressed their deepest sympathies to the Indian leadership," on the loss of lives, injuries and damage to property in Mumbai, it added.
