World | India
Gloom grips Mumbai
The tragedy of Tuesday lingered on as gloom and sadness prevailed across the city mourning its huge human loss on the tracks.
- By Pamela Raghunath, Correspondent
- Published: 00:00 July 12, 2006
Mumbai: The tragedy of Tuesday lingered on as gloom and sadness prevailed across the city mourning its huge human loss on the tracks.
The Mumbai police have put the toll from the blasts at 183 and the number of injured at 615. However, observers believe the figures could be higher.
A railway employee estimates that at least 40 to 50 percent of at least 1050 commuters on Tuesday were killed in the blasts.
The scenes of destruction and death are perhaps the reason why there was a less than normal turnout at offices and even schools and colleges.
Even the unaffected Central Railway went almost empty during rush hours while roads had little traffic. Those brave enough kept their shops open while the rest closed.
Businessman Vijay Kalantri said the blasts were "tactics adopted to scare foreign investors and create a fear psychosis in their minds".
Meanwhile, citizens have complained about the lack of police visibility and government action at the blast sites to help commuters stunned by shock.
BJP leader Gopinath Munde blasted the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government for their failure to protect the citizens.
"Where was your much trumpeted Disaster Management Cell at that dark hour?" he thundered in the legislative assembly. "You don't even have stretchers to carry the dead and wounded. Even the communication network went dead."
"Your body language shows you are not serious in ruling the state," he told Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil in the audience.
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