(IDEX Online News) – The heads of the global diamond industry are expressing sorrow and sending their condolences to Mumbai following the Wednesday's terrorist attacks. The attacks cost the lives of nearly 20 people, some of them from the diamond industry.

 

Yair Sahar, the newly elected president of the Israel Diamond Exchange, expressed shock in a letter to Anoop Mehta, president of Bharat Diamond Bourse in Mumbai.

 

"On behalf of the entire diamond community in Israel, please convey our deepest condolences to the people of India and to the Bharat Diamond Bourse," Sahar wrote.

 

Sahar offered help and support in assisting in returning to normalcy.

 

Moshe Mosbacher, President of the Diamond Dealers Club, reacted with horror at the news.

 

"Words cannot properly express our shock and dismay over these cruel and senseless attacks, whose sole aim is wreak havoc and cause suffering in a city that is so important, first and foremost because it is home to so many friends and family. Our hearts go out to the all the victims, the injured and their families," Mosbacher said.

 

"The goal of terrorists is to disrupt our regular existence, and we can best combat them by refusing to do that. On behalf of the New York trade, I pledge to our colleagues in India that we will do all that we can to ensure that life will continue as before, and the ties and relationships that connect us will be strengthened. We stand alongside them and the people of India during this difficult time," Mosbacher added.

 

The AWDC called the bombings brutal and conveyed its sincerest feelings of condolence to India and India’s diamond district.

 

"Our thoughts go out to the families of those killed and injured in this terrible attack. We hope the injured make a speedy recovery,” AWDC President Nishit Parikh said.

 

As a multicultural centre with a large Indian community, Antwerp sympathizes heavily with the victims and strongly condemns this act of violence, and AWDC release stated.

 

India’s Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council expressed its distress at the loss of life and injury to industry members and extended its “deepest sympathy” to the friends and families of the victims of yesterday’s bomb blasts in Mumbai. It vowed, however, not to be cowed down by terrorism.

 

A GJEPC press statement noted, “The industry is not deterred and cannot be browbeaten by such acts of cowardice.”

 

The note said the industry would continue to work with the rest of the business community as well as consumers, to ensure that the stability of diamond and jewelry markets in India and all over the world was not affected.

 

The GJEPC stood ready to work with all stakeholders of the industry as well as the citizens of Mumbai to ensure the “well-being and security of Mumbai’s diamond and jewelry business districts of Opera House and Zaveri Bazaar.”

Avi Paz, president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, also sent condolences on behalf of the WFDB to Anoop Mehta, saying he was shocked to hear about the terrorist bombing that claimed the lives of so many innocent people, some of them members of the diamond business community in Mumbai. 

 

"On behalf of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and its affiliated member bourses, I extend our organization's sincere condolences to the families of the victims and send our best wishes for speedy recovery to the wounded," Paz wrote.

 

(Updated 7:33 am July 7, 2011)