MUMBAI, 12 July 2007 — Tributes were paid yesterday to the victims of the Mumbai train blasts that killed more than 200 people on July 11 last year. Several programs were held at the blasts site at Khar, Jogeshwari, Mira Road, Mahim, Bandra and Matunga railway stations on the first anniversary of the blasts. Security was tightened and commuters were frisked at several railway stations as a precautionary measure.
Many commuters stopped to pray, offering marigold and hibiscus flowers at makeshift memorials at stations where the bombs had gone off. Railway authorities were running one of the railcars badly mangled in the attacks but restored with much effort.
Various television channels aired programs related to the 7/11 blasts including the Compact Discs (CDs) of the confessional statements of the blast accused. The Maharashtra government, however, swung into action immediately and ordered a probe into the leak of the video CDs of the statements made by the accused.
At the bustling Mahim railway station, one of seven hit by the serial bombings, commuters passed by a signboard that the authorities erected to commemorate the victims. “We offer our condolences to those who lost friends and relatives,” it read.
Though a year has lapsed since the blasts took place, the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra police, which investigated the case, have failed to arrest the masterminds of the blasts, while the trial of the 13 arrested accused is yet to begin. The ATS has filed more than 11,000 pages of charge sheet against the accused in the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) court in Mumbai.
Meanwhile, S. Rameshkumar, the principal secretary (relief and rehabilitation) in the Maharashtra government said that the state government has given Rupees 4.56 crore as financial assistance to the victims. Rameshkumar said that Rupees 1.86 crore were given to the relatives of those killed, Rupees 2.61 crore were given for the medical treatment to 201 rail commuters who were critically injured and Rupees 10.5 lakhs to those who sustained minor injuries.
The government is in the process of finalizing grant of financial assistance to 21 injured people about whom information was received recently, he added.
The Hindustan Times newspaper berated the authorities for failing to catch the ringleaders behind the bomb plot in an editorial entitled “Clueless in Mumbai,” and for failing to prepare and protect the country against acts of terrorism. Thirteen men allegedly belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, have been arrested over the bombings. Some 15 men, including those accused of masterminding the blasts, are still at large, it said.
The newspaper said officials had even failed to install more than 500 closed circuit television cameras in urban railway stations “as mandarins continue to dither over whether it would be cheaper to hire these cameras rather than buy them.”
More than 6 million people ride the crowded rail network into the city every day. Since the blasts, police have installed door-frame metal detectors and closed-circuit TV cameras at railway stations, and use hand-held detectors for random checks of commuters.
—With input from agencies
