20 years of Mumbai serial train blasts

I still remember that evening vividly. It was drizzling. I was in the newsroom at Mahim when I received the first alert. I rushed to Mahim station and did not know what I was walking into. What I saw at the station, I still cannot forget. Even today, I remember the smell of burnt flesh and the cries of injured passengers.

My office was at Mahim, so naturally my family was worried, and my mom and wife were calling me frantically to check on me amid the chaos. As I answered the call, I saw the badly burnt bodies and injured being put into whatever vehicles were available on the Tulsi Pipe Road, parallel to the railway lines. It was utter chaos. Then there was another call, and I was told it had happened at Matunga as well.

In just 11 minutes, seven bomb blasts had struck Mumbai’s Western Railway suburban network. It was evening rush hour. Mahim saw the highest number of deaths. I was there. I saw it.

After covering Mahim, I rushed to Matunga. Such was the impact of the blast that the shell of the train had opened up. I could not imagine what would have happened to the people inside. The riddled train had stopped just short of the Matunga flyover. There was a crowd of rescuers and victims that I saw from the pedestrian bridge. It was chaotic, but there was a strange, eerie silence. Everything had come to a standstill. The power in the OHE had been shut off. It was bad. The blasts had hit Matunga Road, Mahim, Bandra, Khar Road, Jogeshwari, Bhayandar and Borivali.

By the time the toll was counted, 209 people had died. Over 700 were injured. Many of them never fully recovered.

I still remember the stories of eyewitnesses, motormen and survivors.

In the days after, I spoke to many people — eyewitnesses, motormen who had been driving those trains, motormen driving in the opposite direction when the blast happened, seeing bodies from the passing blast-hit train falling like pins on their windscreens, and survivors who were still in shock. Each one had a story — horrible, horrible ones. I remember many of these conversations even today, twenty years later.

What I also remember is how fast the city got back on its feet. Western Railway resumed services within hours. People went back to the same trains the very next day — not because the fear was gone, but because Mumbai does not stop.

There is a story of resilience that has always stayed with me. A few of the damaged coaches from that evening were subsequently repaired and revived as a fitting reply to terrorism and put back into service. One coach from that evening — No. 864-A, the one that had opened up at Matunga — survived and kept running till as late as 2022. It had earlier been transferred to Central Railway and was running on the Trans-Harbour line for years, carrying ordinary passengers who had no idea what that coach had been through. As late as mid-2025, it was standing quietly at the Kalwa car shed, no longer in service. There had been talk of converting the coach into a memorial by placing it at the heritage open gallery, but it never worked out.

All stations have a memorial plaque that is commemorated every year, and railway officials go and lay flowers. They remember and pay tribute to the deceased. This year marks 20 years.

I remember — not because I want to relive that evening, but because it is a wound that will go with me. Twenty years on, we remember those who did not come home that day. And we remember the city that, somehow, always finds a way to keep moving.