Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday visited all the three blast sites — Opera House, Zaveri Bazar and Kabutar Khana, Dadar — and visited the injured at the Saifee hospital. He also conducted a meeting with Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan at Mantralaya.
Officials did not receive prior intelligence that an attack was imminent, Chidambaram said. He refused to term such a lack of information a failure, calling it “unfortunate” instead. “The attackers used ammonium nitrate with a timer mechanism based on forensic evidence collected from the blast sites,” Chidambaram added.
According to reports from the Mumbai Police 17 persons have died and another 133 persons are injured, of which condition of 13 is stated to be critical and 27 injured have been discharged after treatment.
These figures are subject to change on the basis of further verifications and confirmations.
The Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) teams from Delhi (seven members) and Pune (four members) have reached Mumbai and visited all the sites and collected samples. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) team has reached Mumbai in the wee hours of Thursday as well as a six-member post blast investigation team of National Security Guard (NSG) reached Mumbai and have begun their investigations.
Meanwhile, security alerts have been issued in all major cities including New Delhi and Kolkata after the blasts.
According to home ministry officials, all state governments have been asked to heighten security measures. “All the state governments have been asked to increase police patrolling and keep forces on high alert,” a home ministry official said.
This is the second attack in Mumbai after the November 2008 terror strike in which 166 people were killed.
