CURRENT ISSUE JULY 24, 2006

Mumbai 7/11
No other city in the free world has faced so many terrorist attacks. Like before, the serial blasts exposed the city's vulnerability as a soft target and again it was the indomitable spirit of its citizens that came to the rescue.

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BLOOD AND TEARS: Hospitals were unable to cope with the huge rush of severely injured victims of the serial train blasts	MANGLED METAL: The anti-terrorist squad of the Mumbai police conducting preliminary investigation in the blast-hit compartment of a train at Bandra railway station

LAKSHMAN PARAB, 33 RESIDENT OF JOGESHWARI
I was in the Borivili Fast and just as the train left Bandra station, I heard a blast. Being the rush hour, the train was packed and there were many people between me and the bench where the bomb went off. I bent to protect myself but metal splinters flew into my face and I started bleeding profusely. I managed to jump out of the train and someone who was going to the Bhabha Hospital to see his grandfather picked me up and brought me here. The bleeding in my hands has stopped because of the bandage but the splinters have not yet been removed.

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STENCH OF DEATH: Scores of bodies await identification at Mumbai's Bhagwati Hospital a day after the blasts	LAST RITES: A man walks past a burning pyre after the cremation of a victim

PORGO NADAR, 33 RESIDENT OF MALAD
I was travelling from my office in Dadar to Malad. As soon as the train reached Mahim at about 6.30 p.m., I heard a loud noise and the next thing I knew was my eyes and legs were bleeding. I fell off the train and blacked out for a minute. There were injured people strewn all around on the tracks. I caught hold of two other injured and ran out of the station. People helped us reach the hospital where the doctor gave me an injection but I had to wait for further help as doctors were busy tending to the more serious patients.

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RUSH HOUR HURRY: As in Mahim, elsewhere too, it were mostly ordinary citizens who took the lead in carrying the injured and the maimed to the hospitals	HELPING HAND: Through the chaos and traffic snarls, Mumbaikars helped stranded motorists with water and other essentials

DAKSHA MODI, 45 RESIDENT OF MALAD
I boarded the 5.54-p.m. Borivili Fast from Churchgate. Thirty minutes later, as the train pulled out of Mahim station, a deafening blast rocked it and the driver jammed the emergency brakes to a stop. Within seconds, the adjacent first class compartment turned into a metal contraption. All of us jumped out to find out what the mayhem was about. My first priority was to look for my brother-in-law but what I found were dismembered limbs, eyeballs and intestines strewn on the tracks. I forgot my personal tragedy and started pulling out people, many of whom were already dead.

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