NEW DELHI, 28 August 2003 — Forensic scientists yesterday confirmed that powerful RDX explosives were used in the Bombay blasts, in which 65 people died and 152 others were injured.
The last time RDX was used in Bombay was during the 13 serial blasts of March 12, 1993, when 200 people died and more than 1,000 were injured, police said.
RDX, also known as cyclonite or hexogen, is a white crystalline solid usually mixed with other explosives.
Director of the Maharashtra’s State Forensic Laboratory, Rukmini Krishnamurthy, said the impact of the blasts was very powerful as the explosives were kept in the boot of two taxis alongside compressed natural gas cylinders.
The two bombs went off within minutes of each other on Monday afternoon in southern Bombay.
One was in a crowded financial district and the other was near a popular tourist destination. Both bombs were planted in taxis.
Bombay’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Satyapal Singh told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, “It was the work of a very well-trained group or groups. This was indicated by the selection of locations, materials used, and the timing of the blasts.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Indians in black, some with black bandannas over their mouths, marched through Bombay yesterday in a silent protest against the twin car bombings.
More than 10,000 demonstrators gathered at the Gateway of India landmark — where one of the bombs exploded on Monday — and headed for the state government offices.
“The culprits should be caught and shot in the middle of the road,” said Hindu activist and housewife Roopali Dhongle, 43, who was dressed in a gold-bordered black sari.
Many men wore black shirts and women black saris. They were joined by a large group of tour guides, balloon sellers and other vendors who were working in the area when the bombs went off.
Flower-seller Kamlabai Pawar, 43, cried as she walked in the bloodstained blouse and sari she had on on Monday.
“There is great anger in the people. That is why we have got such a good response,” said Vijaybhai Girkar, Bombay chief of India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which organized the rally with the hard-line Shiv Sena party.
Barricades and police armed with bamboo sticks stopped the rally about 500 meters from the government offices. The demonstrators quietly dispersed.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombings, but the state government has said they were in revenge for Hindu-Muslim clashes in neighboring Gujarat state last year that killed at least 3,000 people, most of them Muslims.
Police have blamed the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India working with the banned Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the bombings.
Eight of those killed at the Gateway were pilgrims from Gujarat’s Maldhari cattle-herding community, sightseeing on their way to one of Hinduism’s most important celebrations, the Kumbh Mela on the Godavari river.
The eight, all men, were cremated overnight after the long journey to their hometown of Surendranagar, where 3,000 Maldharis had waited for hours in the rain, not knowing which family had lost a loved one because the victims’ names had been kept secret.
Women began screaming and beating their chests when they found out who had been killed. Twenty-eight-year-old laborer Sukhabhai Barwad said his family had urged his parents not to make the pilgrimage because his father had just had a cataract operation.
Police are questioning the driver of the taxi that exploded at the Gateway, a huge British colonial waterfront arch and Bombay’s most popular tourist attraction. The man said he was hired by three people who told him to park while they went off to have lunch, leaving their bag in the trunk. He survived because he was away from the vehicle when it exploded. No arrests have been made.
