NYT: Bombs aimed at India's white-collar establishment

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Bombs Aimed at India's Well-Off
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: July 13, 2006

MUMBAI, India, July 12 — A bank worker did not make it home. A would-be software developer rested on a hospital gurney waiting for doctors to repair a broken arm. An engineer, fresh from meeting with a client, lay in a hospital morgue, recognizable by a ring on his finger.

As India’s magnet city quietly arose Wednesday on the morning after a series of eight bombings along its suburban commuter train line, a closer portrait of a carefully calibrated crime emerged. The bombers, it turned out, systematically chose first-class men’s compartments, poking a poisoned finger in the eye of the city’s white-collar establishment.

The bombers, who remain unknown, most likely used militarystyle plastic explosives, the Indian authorities said. The synchronized nature of the blasts during the evening rush hour, intelligence experts said, pointed to the use of timers. As of Wednesday the toll stood at 183 killed and 700 wounded.

Judging by the lists of those casualties posted at city hospitals, the victims were overwhelmingly male and mostly working age. Judging by the testimony of their friends and relatives, most were habitual first-class passengers.

If attacking the trains was an attempt to break the lifeline of Mumbai, then picking these compartments was a pointed attempt to cripple the men who stoke the city’s roaring economy — bankers, stockbrokers, accountants, engineers....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/world/asia/13india.html?hp&ex=1152763200&en=35a5c71a84c220b8&ei=5094&partner=homepage