150 wounded in Bombay blasts

At least 25 people were killed and 150 wounded today when four explosions rocked India’s financial capital Bombay, a state official said.

About 40 of the injured are understood to be critically ill.

The blasts came on the same day as the release of a long-anticipated archaeological report on a disputed religious site in northern India that has been linked to previous attacks in Bombay.

One explosion went off near the Gateway of India, a tourist attraction built by the British to commemorate the 1911 visit of King George V, police commissioner Javed Ahmed said.

Two others struck the Zaveri Bazaar, a crowded jewellery market, and a fourth detonated near Pydhonie police station.

The explosions rocked buildings, telephone lines in the city were jammed and mobile phone services crashed briefly as panicked residents called family and friends. One report said as many as 40 people were killed.

Police issued security alerts for Bombay and New Delhi, the Indian capital, after the explosions, calling policemen back from leave in case of further trouble.

“The building we were in shook and we heard a loud noise,” said Ingrid Alva, a PR consultant who works near the gateway in Bombay.

“I rushed out and saw the crowds at the Gateway of India. We saw some body parts lying around, before we were told to move away by the police.”

The blast broke windows at the Taj Mahal Hotel, which is across the street from the gateway, and damaged cars in the car park, said Ravi Dubey, the hotel’s communications manager.

The explosions came just hours after the release of the archaeological report on the religious site in the northern town of Ayodhya, claimed by both Hindus and Muslims.

That dispute has been blamed for previous explosions in Bombay.

In March, a bomb attack on a Bombay train, which police blamed on Islamic militants, killed 11 people and wounded 64 others.

That explosion came a day after the 10th anniversary of a series of bombings in Bombay – also blamed on Islamic militants – which killed more than 250 people and injured 1,000.

Police say the bombings were in retaliation for the 1992 destruction by Hindus mobs of the 16th-century Ayodhya mosque, and to avenge Muslim deaths in the nationwide riots that followed.

Some Hindus claim the mosque was built centuries ago on the ruins of a Hindu temple that marked the birthplace of their supreme god, Rama.

The report, issued by the government archaeological agency, indicated there had been some sort of ancient structure at the site, lawyers for both sides said, although they disagreed on whether it said there had actually been a temple. The report has not been released to the public or the media.