I returned from my quick trip from Assam to the news that mil­i­tants had derailed a goods train back in my home state while two blasts rocked Mum­bai, killing 45 and injur­ing over 150.

Some images from the inci­dent today.

Mum­bai has had more than its share of blasts this year. And all forms of trans­porta­tion are being used to spread ter­ror — buses, trains and now cabs.

The Ghatkopar blast hap­pened in a BEST bus in July.

The Mulund blast hap­pened on a local train in March.

With the teem­ing mil­lions who throng Mum­bai train sta­tions every­day, these areas are par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble to attacks. Train sta­tions that have recently been tar­get­ted — Vile Parle (Jan 28), Ghatkopar (Dec 2, 2002) and Mum­bai Cen­tral (Dec 6, 2002).

The city’s his­tory of bomb blasts is increas­ing with alarm­ing frequency.

The blasts have taken place on the same day as the release of the Arche­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey of India’s(ASI) report on the Ayo­d­hya issue.

Jivha writes in his blog: “What­ever the report says, what­ever the group that engi­neered the blasts, what­ever the polit­i­cal par­ties say — I’m clear about one thing.

Each and every per­son killed in the blasts today was killed by reli­gion.

I think we should con­sider becom­ing athi­ests if things are com­ing to this in India. I don’t see much use for a reli­gion at the cost of thou­sands of inno­cent lives every year.”

Jivha also links to this quote from A P J Abdul Kalam speech pre-Independence Day: “Let us for a moment pause to reflect what it is that for which we would like to be remem­bered for by future gen­er­a­tions. Will we be remem­bered for how many mosques our gen­er­a­tion has added, will we be remem­bered for how many tem­ples our gen­er­a­tion has added or will we be remem­bered for how many gurud­waras our gen­er­a­tion has added? No, not at all. We will be remem­bered only if we give to our younger gen­er­a­tion a pros­per­ous and safe India, result­ing out of eco­nomic pros­per­ity cou­pled with civil­i­sa­tional heritage.”

A pros­per­ous and safe India — we don’t seem to be much closer to achiev­ing it.