Blasts on Indian Commuter Trains Kill More Than 140

MARGARET WARNER: Late this afternoon, I spoke by phone with Alex Perry, South Asia bureau chief for Time magazine. He's in New Delhi.

And, Alex, thank you for joining us. It's after 2:00 a.m. where you are right now. Is the rescue effort still under way or is it complete? What can you tell us about the death toll and whether it's continuing to rise?

ALEX PERRY, South Asia Bureau Chief, Time Magazine: The rescue effort is mostly completed by now, as there were -- the trains started running again a couple of hours ago, though they paused overnight.

Most of the carnage has been shifted off the tracks and bodies taken away. At the moment, we're looking at 147 dead and around about 400 injured.

People still expect that number to rise. Obviously, some of the injured are very seriously injured.

The trains were -- this was rush hour, 6:00, 6:30. The trains in Bombay at that time are incredibly packed, generally about three times to what is meant to be their capacity, so every train will be carrying about 4,000-4,500 people.

So I think we can expect the death toll to rise. But at the moment, the trains look at though they're going to be running again in the morning.

MARGARET WARNER: And is there any more detail on how these attacks were carried out? How closely spaced were the blasts? What kind of explosives were used?

ALEX PERRY: This is a precisely coordinated attack. There were seven blasts within somewhere between 11 and 20 minutes of each other, according to the different reports of when they came in.

But essentially almost going all at the same time, all on the same railway line. The western railway is a main artery going through Bombay. Something like 80 percent of India's commuters will take the railway to get to work, and 6.5 million people will use that one line.

So the idea, essentially, was to cripple India's financial capital, its transport network, and that's what happened. The railway lines shut down. People had to turn to the roads, and the roads were gridlocked.

MARGARET WARNER: What are Indian authorities telling you now about who they think was behind the attacks?

ALEX PERRY: Nobody's saying anything officially. India and Pakistan are having a peace process at the moment, and nobody wants to ruffle feathers.

Unofficially, off the record, security sources of mine (inaudible) are saying all fingers point to a loose alliance between a Pakistan militant group called the Lashkar-e-Taiba that fights in Kashmir and also has carried out bombing campaigns (inaudible) across the rest of India. And that group, working in alliance with a radical Indian Muslim group called SIMI, which was originally a student group.

That nexus is thought to be behind a series of blasts in India over the last few years. Bombay itself, actually, in 2003, there were nine explosions over a period of about nine months in which a few people died.

And in the last 12 months, we've had bomb attacks in Delhi that killed 60, bomb attacks in the Hindi holy city of Varanasi which killed around 20, and attacks in Bangalore and Hyderabad, the two I.T. centers.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're saying one group is involved in the Kashmir conflict but the other group is not? If not, what is their aim?

ALEX PERRY: Their aim is -- well, I mean, I have met one of these guys shortly before there was a large blast in Bombay in 2003. I met a senior leader in SIMI in Bombay.

He basically expressed rage. There was no point. There was no manifesto. He didn't want a change in policy. He didn't want any -- he didn't have any specific, say, a withdrawal from Kashmir. His whole point was to kill Hindus.

He basically saw himself as alienated and all Muslims as alienated in India by decades, if not centuries, of oppression and discrimination. He said that Muslims were excluded from the Indian boom, that therefore they always lived less healthy lives. They were ghettoized, and they were frequent victims of violence, of communal violence from Hindus.

So for him the whole point of what he was doing was (inaudible) it was an expression of rage. He wanted to kill.

MARGARET WARNER: And are either of these groups linked to al-Qaida in any way?

ALEX PERRY: Yes, the LeT has proven links to al-Qaida. There's been several senior members of al-Qaida arrested in Pakistan, who've been arrested from LeT safe houses. LeT and al-Qaida have been known to share training facilities, intelligence.

And they both have a connection through the Pakistani security services, the ISI, which to many people believe operates, you know, fairly independently of President Musharraf.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Alex Perry, Time magazine, thank you so much.

ALEX PERRY: Sure.

MARGARET WARNER: And since we talked to Alex Perry, authorities revised their count of the number of explosions to eight.

Now, some perspective on why Mumbai was targeted and the possible fallout from today's attacks. For that, we're joined by Anil Padmanabhan, New York bureau chief for India Today, India's largest weekly news magazine.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Why do you think Mumbai, the city of Mumbai, would be a target for terrorists? What American city would you compare it to?

ANIL PADMANABHAN, New York Bureau Chief, India Today: Typically, New York. It's India's commercial capital and also the business capital. It's a port, so there's a tremendous amount of investment in that city.

It's also the corporate headquarters for some of the biggest companies from India, Reliance and Tarders (ph), to mention two. It's the seat where Bollywood is located.

MARGARET WARNER: The film industry.

ANIL PADMANABHAN: In every which way of a commercial hub of the country, and hence a primary target for anybody looking to cripple India economically.

MARGARET WARNER: And when you mentioned Bollywood, you mean the film industry, the Indian film industry?

ANIL PADMANABHAN: Correct.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, how essential is rail transport to this city?

ANIL PADMANABHAN: Absolutely critical. It's like my colleague from the Times said; it's an artery that runs north to south in Mumbai. And it's critical to transporting people from across, right from the southern tip of Bombay right up to the northern suburbs. And it's like he mentioned, absolutely critical on a daily, five-day work week in the city.