Cleaner tells of screams, carnage on street

INDIA: Raju Ghosh had just settled down for a tea break after sweeping a busy street in India's financial capital, Bombay, when…

INDIA: Raju Ghosh had just settled down for a tea break after sweeping a busy street in India's financial capital, Bombay, when he heard the deafening explosion.

"I looked up and saw smoke everywhere and people screaming. I started running towards a taxi that had exploded into pieces," said the 24-year-old cleaner.

"I saw people thrashing around on the road. There were chunks of flesh like mutton pieces all over. I picked up 12 bodies, with legs, hands and heads blown off. My head was spinning and I was trembling, but I continued carrying the bodies."

One bomb ripped through a congested bullion market and a second exploded near the historic Gateway of India, a huge archway built to commemorate the first visit to India by a British king and queen, King George V and Queen Mary in 1911.

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Hours after the explosions the smell of flesh filled the air and chunks of cement, wood and broken glass lay on the ground around the bullion market. The blasts brought back memories of a series of bombs in the city in 1993 that killed at least 260 people.

"Bombay has not been safe since the 1993 blasts. It is getting worse. No public place is safe now. Anything can happen at any time," said Raju Jain, a 45-year-old jeweller sitting in a shop with the floor covered in pieces of glass.

One taxi-driver said he had been driving past the bullion market when the bomb exploded. "There were legs and hands lying on top and inside my taxi. I had a miraculous escape," said Lal Sahib Singh, whose clothes were soaked in blood. - (Reuters)