It was the first in a series of terror attacks targeting innocent civilians in urban centres that caused mayhem and misery in India for 20 long and uninterrupted years. So sustained and so bloodthirsty was this barbarity that the mighty Indian state looked on helplessly as citizens were slaughtered indiscriminately in bomb blasts that occurred usually in heavily populated urban areas.
One never knew when and where the terrorists would strike. It could be a political rally in Coimbatore when carefully panted bombs would explode, killing 58 people. It could be a car bomb right outside the Jammu and Kashmir assembly that would explode, killing 26. It could be a diabolically planned series of bomb blasts in Varanasi that would kill 28. It could be a series of blasts in a major market in Delhi on the eve of Diwali that would kill 70. It could be a bomb blast in a moving train that would kill 70.
Or it could be a series of blasts in Ahmedabad including in a hospital where the wounded were being taken, that would kill 56. There is no need to recount the multiple terror attacks that have ravaged Mumbai. Perhaps the last such major attack occurred in Hyderabad in February 2013 that killed 18.