Bombs In Bombay

THE FIRST BLAST ROCKED A GARAGE UNDER THE gleaming 29-story Bombay Stock Exchange. Over the next 2 1/2 hours, 11 more major detonations and several minor ones, most caused by car bombs, shook the center and some of the suburbs of India's largest city, killing more than 300, injuring 1,100 and leaving behind massive damage. The explosions touched off a blaze on the trading floor of the exchange, blew out the ground floor of Air India's headquarters and damaged three hotels.

As in the attack two weeks earlier on New York City's World Trade Center, which the first Bombay bombing appeared to resemble, at first no person or group claimed responsibility. Speculation as to the bombers focused on, among others, separatist groups backed by Pakistan and Hindu and Muslim militants in the wake of sectarian rioting in Bombay last December and January that claimed 900 lives. By Saturday police were questioning several suspects, but no arrests had been made.