Mumbai returns to work in wake of deadly attacks

"It's a little scary but we have no option to go back to work."

Amita Rane, a 24-year-old chartered accountant

Victims Mumbai's deadly bombings battled for life in crowded city hospitals yesterday, but millions of others put the threat of more attacks to the back of their minds as India's financial hub went back to work.

Investigators through mangled trains to search for clues as to who was behind Tuesday's seven coordinated bomb blasts that killed at least 183 people. Suspicion fell on Pakistan-based militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

Tuesday's attacks, on first-class compartments and railway stations, seemed to have been aimed at the heart of India's economic success story, but just hours later the city's residents were back at work and the stock market was steady.

"It's a little scary but we have no option to go back to work," said Amita Rane, a 24-year-old chartered accountant.

More 700 were wounded when seven bombs blew apart railway carriages and stations packed with rush-hour commuters in the space of just 11 minutes.

The death toll was the worst since a series of bombs killed more than 250 in Mumbai in 1993. The attacks were also eerily reminiscent of serial bomb blasts on commuter rail networks in Madrid and London in the past two years.

"In my view the Mumbai bombers could have been inspired by the London and Madrid attacks," said Peter Lehr at the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at Britain's St. Andrews University.

"It is an attempt to instill fear and terror in the minds of the people and spark a new wave of communal violence among Hindus and Muslims. In this they have miserably failed," he said.

Grim search

Yesterday morning, more than 12 hours after the attacks, relatives and friends of victims were still poring over survivors' lists at city hospitals or trying to identify charred and mutilated corpses. Other relatives were inside the wards, tending to the injured lying on blood-soaked beds.

In the state-run King Edward Memorial Hospital, a woman cried inconsolably after seeing the half-burnt face of her husband, who was critically wounded.

"That cannot be him, that cannot be him. It cannot happen to him," she wailed.

Extra were deployed at railway stations, parks, markets and religious institutions across the country to prevent further attacks and possible violence between Hindus and Muslims. Checkpoints were set up on key roads in major cities.

The explosions happened hours after a series of grenade attacks on tourists in Srinagar, capital of Indian Kashmir, which killed eight people.

World reaction

Meanwhile, world leaders rushed to condemn the bombings, and warned that similar attacks could occur elsewhere at any time.

"There is no justification for the vicious murder of innocent people," said US President George W. Bush.

"The United States stands with the people and the government of India and condemns in the strongest terms these atrocities, which were committed against innocent people as they went about their daily lives," Bush said in a written statement issued on Tuesday evening. "Such acts only strengthen the resolve of the international community to stand united against terrorism."

British Minister Tony Blair also denounced the "brutal and shameful attacks."