Were Mumbai serial blasts aimed at Gujarati community?

After the Zaveri Bazaar and Opera House bomb blasts on Wednesday, questions arose similar to those after the July 2006 terror attacks on the city’s suburban trains — was the Gujarati community targeted?

The July 11, 2006, blasts that killed over 200 people took place in the first class compartments of trains going to western suburbs, such as Malad, Kandivli and Borivli, which have a large concentration of Gujaratis.

On August 25, 2003, Zaveri Bazar and Gateway of India were the targets of a terror attack that killed over 50 people. Earlier, blasts had taken place in Ghatkopar in July 2003, Mulund in March 2003 and Vile Parle in January 2003 — all largely inhabited by Gujaratis. After the 2003 blasts, the then chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde had said that there was no indication that the terrorists had targeted the Gujarati community.

Hemraj Shah of the Bruhadmumbai Gujarati Samaj, a community organisation, said that the terrorists had probably chosen areas that were crowded in the evening to kill more people. “Zaveri Bazar is close to the police commissioner’s office. Khau Galli in Opera House and Kabutarkhana in Dadar are crowded in the evenings with office workers leaving for home,” said Shah.

Viren Shah, president of the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association, was of a similar opinion. “To some extent, it looks like the diamond and jewellery hubs have been targeted, as Opera House and Zaveri Bazar are centres of this business. At the same time, it also looks like the terrorists targeted crowded areas.”