29 October 2005 Delhi bombings - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The 29 October 2005 Delhi bombings occurred on 29 October 2005 in Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

, India, killing 62 people and injuring at least 210 others in three explosions. The bombings came only two days before the important festival of Diwali

Diwali

Diwali or DeepavaliThe name of the festival in various regional languages include:, , , , , , , , , , , , , popularly known as the "festival of lights," is a festival celebrated between mid-October and mid-December for different reasons...

, which is celebrated by Hindu

Hindu

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

s, Sikh

Sikh

A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...

s, and Jains. The bombs were triggered in two markets in central and south Delhi and in a bus in the Govindpuri area in the south of the city. Indian investigators believe the Kashmir

Kashmir

Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...

separatist/ Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba

Lashkar-e-Taiba

Lashkar-e-Taiba – also transliterated as Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Lashkar-i-Taiba, Lashkar Taiba or LeT – is one of the largest and most active militant Islamist terrorist organizations in South Asia, operating mainly from Pakistan.It was founded by Hafiz Muhammad...

was behind the attacks.

President

President of India

The President of India is the head of state and first citizen of India, as well as the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. President of India is also the formal head of all the three branches of Indian Democracy - Legislature, Executive and Judiciary...

A P J Abdul Kalam condemned the blasts in Delhi and sent condolences to the bereaved and other victims. Kalam appealed to the people "to maintain calm and help the agencies in relief and rescue work." Parts of India were moved to higher alert following the blasts.

Timeline

The blasts happened as follows:

The first blast took place in the main bazaar of Paharganj
Paharganj
Paharganj is a neighbourhood of Central Delhi, located just west of the New Delhi Railway Station...

near the New Delhi Railway Station at around 5:38 p.m. (IST)^*.
The second blast took place near a bus in Govindpuri area at 6:00 p.m. (IST)^* in the southern part of the city.
Within minutes of the second explosion, at 6:05 p.m. (IST)^*, the third explosion took place in South Delhi's busy Sarojini Nagar
Sarojini Nagar
Sarojini Nagar is a neighbourhood in South West Delhi district of Delhi, India. The area is one of the most developed and cleanest areas in Delhi and is popular because of its market. It was one of the sites of the 29 October 2005 Delhi bombings. It is close to Safdarjung Airport, starting 2010,...

market.

(*Note:IST stands for Indian Standard Time
Indian Standard Time
Indian Standard Time is the time observed throughout India and Sri Lanka, with a time offset of UTC+05:30. India does not observe daylight saving time or other seasonal adjustments, although DST was used briefly during the Sino–Indian War of 1962 and the Indo–Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971...

, which is equal to UTC+5.5)

Modus operandi and suspects

The first explosion (Paharganj explosion) occurred outside New Delhi Railway Station. The explosive device was planted in a two-wheeler (generic term used in India for any motorised vehicle with two wheels, such as a motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...

or a motorscooter). When the bomb exploded, it ripped apart the M S Medicos, a medical shop outside which the two-wheeler was parked. According to Rediff.com the shop was badly damaged with glass strewn all over the street and blood splattered all over the ground. When the explosion took place large number of people were eating golgappas in the adjoining snacks-cum-sweet shop resulting in the high number of deaths in the area.

The Govindpuri explosion, which took place inside a bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

, injured nine people, four critically. 35-40 people were travelling in the bus when the conductor of the bus spotted a suspicious plastic bag which none of the passengers claimed. The passengers were already suspicious as a man had climbed aboard the bus and refused to buy a ticket, according to the BBC, leaving his large, black bag aboard. The driver and conductor of the bus quickly alerted and disembarked the passengers and, by doing so, minimised the damage when the bomb was thrown out of a window. At the time of the explosion, only five people remained inside the bus. However, the driver and conductor sustained injuries in their rescue effort, and the driver's condition was critical according to NDTV. According to the Indian police, the Govindpuri bomb operated on an electronic timer.

The third and most devastating explosion took place in a very crowded corner of the busy Sarojini Nagar
Sarojini Nagar
Sarojini Nagar is a neighbourhood in South West Delhi district of Delhi, India. The area is one of the most developed and cleanest areas in Delhi and is popular because of its market. It was one of the sites of the 29 October 2005 Delhi bombings. It is close to Safdarjung Airport, starting 2010,...

market. According to The Hindu
The Hindu
The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...

website, the eyewitnesses claim that the bomb was placed in a white colour Maruti
Maruti
Māruti can be*Maruti is a Sanskrit word referring to Hanuman, son of Marut , the Hindu Wind God Vayu*Marut is said to have two sons: Hanuman the bachelor God and Bhima....

van whose front and rear mirrors were shattered due to the explosion. The bomb went off near a vendor using a gas cylinder, which exploded, triggering multiple explosions and leading to an outbreak of fire in a row of shops. Apart from resulting in the death of 43 people and injuring about another 28 people, half-a-dozen cloth shops and a few vehicles parked behind these shops were destroyed due to this explosion.

It is believed that the explosive used to carry out the blasts is RDX
RDX
RDX, an initialism for Research Department Explosive, is an explosive nitroamine widely used in military and industrial applications. It was developed as an explosive which was more powerful than TNT, and it saw wide use in WWII. RDX is also known as cyclonite, hexogen , and T4...

.

Suspects

The Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Front or Islamic Inquilab Mahaz, claimed responsibility for the Delhi terrorist attacks. The Mahaz has previous history of terrorism - It was one of the organizations involved in terrorist attacks in the south Pakistan city of Karachi against French, American and other citizens.

The Delhi

Delhi

Police released three sketches of one of the suspected bombers involved in the bombings.
According to NDTV, ten suspects have been detained following the blasts. Five of them were picked up from the Delhi Railway station and others from other railway stations and bus terminals.

Tariq Ahmad Dar, was convicted as the alleged mastermind of the attacks on 10 November 2005 without any evidence. In a court session in October 2007, prosecutors said that Dar telephoned his Lashkar-e-Toiba bosses following the blasts to say his team was successful. On the day he was arrested for links with Lashkar-e-Thoiba, he was on his way to India from Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

, where (Bangladesh) he was arrested as an Indian spy working with Research and Analysis Wing

Research and Analysis Wing

The Research and Analysis Wing is India's external intelligence agency. It was formed in September 1968 after the poor performance of the Intelligence Bureau in the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and the India-Pakistani war of 1965 convinced the then government of India that a specialized, independent...

. Here in India, he was forced to accept the crime which he never committed by giving physical and mental torture. Tariq was later discharged of all charges against him. The police also arrested the suspected Govindpuri bomber, Mohammed Rafiq Shah.

Casualties

Thirty eight people were declared dead in Safdarjang hospital, ten in Lady Hardinge Hospital, five in Ram Manohar Lohia hospital and two in AIIMS

All India Institute of Medical Sciences

All India Institute of Medical Sciences is a premier medical college and teaching hospital based in New Delhi, India. The Institute operates autonomously under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare ....

. The number of fatalities later rose to 62, with about 210 injured.

29 October 2005 Delhi bombings Casualties
Place	Deaths	Injured	Sources
Pahargunj blast	18	60	(Rediff)
Sarojini Nagar market blast	43	28	(Rediff)
Govindpuri blast	0	4	(Rediff)
Total	61	92

Rescue and relief operations

Relatives of the dead and injured received money and medical help from the government:

"Rs
Rupee
The rupee is the common name for the monetary unit of account in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives, and formerly in Burma, and Afghanistan. Historically, the first currency called "rupee" was introduced in the 16th century...

3 lakh
Lakh
A lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand . It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and is often used in Indian English.-Usage:...

will be given as ex-gratia to next of the kin of every dead person, while those seriously injured will get Rs 50,000," Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit
Sheila Dikshit
Sheila Dikshit is the Chief Minister of Delhi. She is from the Indian National Congress. Dikshit was sworn in as the Chief Minister for a third consecutive term of the Government of Delhi state in January 2009 after pulling a victory in November 2008 state elections...

told reporters.
The injured received free treatment at any government hospital.

Reaction in Delhi

Delhi police ordered all temples and restaurants in Delhi closed shortly after the explosions, and the city of Delhi went on red alert

Red Alert

-Warning systems:Notable warning systems that use red alerts are:* The Homeland Security Advisory System * The BIKINI state * An emergency broadcast bullentin used by the Emergency Management of Ontario, in Ontario, Canada-Music:...

Bomb hoaxes

At least two phone calls reporting fake bombs have been received by the Delhi police, including a false report of a bomb in a school (or a fair) for people with visual disabilities. In addition, there was a phone call reporting a (purportedly fake) bomb near a bank in Khari Baoli

Khari Baoli

Khari Baoli is a street in Old Delhi, India known for its wholesale grocery and Asia’s largest wholesale spice market selling all kinds of spices, nuts and herbs...

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=57544 before the attacks occurred; the object referred to by the call was a suitcase, in which there were documents, batteries, and wires. In the midst of the attacks, there was another hoax

Hoax

A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...

call reporting a bomb going off in the Gole Market.

The Delhi police, after the explosions, sent out messages to the public asking them to report unidentified objects. This led to a wave of reports of "bombs", all of which proved to be either nonexistent or more benign objects, including a "bomb" at the Som Bazaar in eastern Delhi and another "bomb" near the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital.

World reaction

The bombings have provoked strong international condemnation from the United States, Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Canada, Australia, China, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, Japan, Belgium, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, UAE, European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

, Bangladesh

Bangladesh

, Maldives

Maldives

The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...

, and South Africa. European Union

European Union

- "Nothing will justify terrorism, which is an aggression against universal values that we share without distinction of language, culture or religion." EU's Foreign policy chief Javier Solana

Javier Solana

Francisco Javier Solana de Madariaga, KOGF is a Spanish physicist and Socialist politician. After serving in the Spanish government under Felipe González and Secretary General of NATO , he was appointed the European Union's High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary...

said, "The perpetrators of these heinous crimes must and will be brought to justice." - President Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...

in a message to President A P J Abdul Kalam expressed condolences on behalf of his government and the people. "The South African government joins the international community in condemning these heinous acts of terrorism, particularly in a country that espouses the principles of democracy and freedom of its people," he said. - "We condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms. It is a cowardly act of violence and we hope that the perpetrators are swiftly identified and brought to justice", a senior State Department official said in Washington. - British Prime Minister Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

sent a letter of condolence to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

Manmohan Singh

Manmohan Singh is the 13th and current Prime Minister of India. He is the only Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after completing a full five-year term. A Sikh, he is the first non-Hindu to occupy the office. Singh is also the 7th Prime Minister belonging to the Indian...

External links

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