Khaleej Times Online
Mumbai Muslims give blood to Hindu bomb victims (Reuters)
12 July 2006
MUMBAI - Indian Muslims queued for hours on Wednesday to give blood to their Hindu neighbours wounded in the Mumbai train bombings, in a rare show of harmony in a city with a long history of rioting between the two communities.
"We don't care whether it's a Hindu or a Muslim who gets our blood as long as we can save them," said Abdul Khan, one of dozens of Muslim men waiting in line at the blood bank at Siddarth Hospital, near one blast site at Jogeshwari station.
Many see Tuesday's deadly strikes that killed more than 180 people and wounded more than 700 as the latest in a campaign of violence by Islamist militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed region of Kashmir.
This has long fomented suspicions between Mumbai's Hindus and the minority Muslim population, and often triggered violent rioting.
Mumbai, a metropolis of 17 million people, has been hit by a series of bomb blasts in the past one and half decades, the worst a series of explosions in 1993 that killed more than 260 people.
Past attacks were usually blamed on Muslim groups trying to avenge Muslim deaths in widespread religious rioting after Hindu zealots demolished a 16th century mosque in northern India.
But such thoughts were far from Pasha Mian Sheikh's mind when he threw open the doors of the Islamia Arabia Mosque, metres from the tracks near the suburb of Jogeshwari, to offer shelter, food and water to the walking wounded.
"People are trying to break our harmony but they have failed," he said of the bombers. "Hundreds of Muslims yesterday showed a lot of courage and harmony when they helped out their Hindu brothers. Hindus and Muslims are together in Mumbai."
Leaders of India's hardline Hindu Shiv Sena party said they had been overwhelmed by the Muslim response.
"Hindus and Muslims walked hand in hand yesterday," said Manohar Kargaonkar, a Shiv Sena official.
"When you read a newspaper you always find that a Muslim terrorist is behind subversive activity. But these people have shown what brotherhood is."
Analysts and community leaders say weariness after decades of conflict as well as rising prosperity from the country's booming economy have helped cool tempers between Hindus and Muslims.
"We are getting increasing reports of Hindu-Muslim harmony from Mumbai this year unlike the earlier times, Maulana Jalaluddin Umri, a top Islamic cleric, told Reuters by phone from Delhi.
"They have realised terrorists belong to one community or the other, but what people have learnt is not to give in to terror tactics."
Meanwhile, bomb victims recovering at Mumbai's hospitals say they did not worry about the religion of those who donated blood.
"We will never give in to communal violence," said Lata Sirsha, who was injured on head and legs.
"This is the real Mumbai which cannot be defeated."