Runaways among casualties in Bombay blast

BOMBAY, July 16 (UPI) -- It may never be known how many of India's street children perished in the Bombay commuter-train explosions, it was reported Sunday.

Dozens of so-called railway children, who live on train platforms and beg and scavenge for food, were sent to hospitals and shelters for homeless children -- many with cuts, burns and shrapnel wounds, the Sunday Times of London reported.

An untold number were killed.

One 14-year-old boy who said his name was Mohammad was on the platform with his friend, Malik.

The blast killed Malik instantly, the newspaper said, and severed Mohammad's leg below the knee, leaving it hanging by the skin.

Had the attack been any later, there would have been 100 or so platform-sleepers there, the newspaper said.

The children, who typically make their living as "rag-pickers," sifting through trash left by commuters for materials they can sell for recycling, come from broken homes and large, poor families in India's most desperate states, including Bihar and Assam in eastern India.

Bombay is their city of choice, the Times said.