'I survived the 7/7 London Bombings - 1 thing made me feel like I had been attacked twice'

Mustafa Kurtuldu thought that it was his lucky day. Having missed his train into Central London, another unexpectedly pulled in five minutes later, saving him a long wait on the platform.

He changed at Liverpool Street Station and boarded a Central Line train on his way to an event at the Home Office. Moments later, the then 24-year-old's life changed forever. "It felt like we hit a slab of concrete or something, it wasn't immediately obvious what had happened," he told the Daily Express.

He had headphones on, which distorted the noise of the explosive device detonated by Shehzad Tanweer, a sound he describes as being like a drinks carton being popped and exploding.

Initially, Mustafa and those around him had no idea what had happened, presuming they had been caught in some mindless act of vandalism as opposed to one of the worst terrorist attacks on the British mainland in decades.

In the next carriage along, the most severely injured woman of the 7/7 atrocities also failed to hear the noise of the bomb but was able to recall the blinding white light it caused.

Martine Wright lost both her legs in the attack, having been standing just four feet away from the bomber.

"I can't believe that in that nanosecond I had enough time to think in my head, 'What the hell is going on?' she said. "Obviously, I was disoriented and thinking, 'Where am I?' I remember the smoke clearing and thinking, 'Oh, we have had a crash.'

"We weren't sitting on seats anymore. They were gone, and we were sort of in a metal crater. Everything was black. I had a sensation of leaning back. I just remember seeing this trainer and thinking, 'If my trainer is up there, where are my legs?'"

In Mustafa's carriage, even the sight of bloodied people making their way from the epicentre of the blast didn't reveal the extent of what had happened.

He added: "I was in shock, even seeing those people injured, you're still like, what is going on. We would see people covered in blood trying to get through and have to stand on the chairs to let them pass, but even then, we didn't really know what had happened.

"We were on the train for around 45 minutes before emergency services and rescue workers eventually made their way down to us and brought us up to the street. What I saw was just a scene of chaos. Emergency workers were everywhere, they were on the scene so quickly.

"People were being treated on the floor, anywhere that they could, it was like a warzone.

"None of it felt real. When you saw terror attacks like 9/11 it felt almost cinematic, but here it was chaos."

The bomb detonated by Shehzad Tanweer killed the bomber and seven others, injuring 100.

Across the capital, four suicide bombers would claim the lives of 52 people and alter the course of hundreds more who continue to carry the physical and mental scars.

The attack on London by Islamic extremists placed Mustafa in a unique position as a practising Muslim.

As police ushered people out of the station and attempted to gather details of those onboard, Mustafa seemed to be the only one who would have his bag checked after revealing his name.

The benefit of time has allowed him to be considered and empathetic in his recollection of the events, but he is honest about how he felt as a young man in the midst of a traumatic experience.

He continued: "It made me feel like s*** but the thing is, in the moment, you can be antagonistic because of what you have just been through, but I understand people have biases and prejudices, so it was a case of getting through it and having the conversation later so I just did it.

"I doubt they had been trained for the situation. Perhaps officers who worked at the height of the IRA had some knowledge of how to deal with such situations, but I don't think they did.

"I am also aware of the pressure on them at that moment. If I were a bad actor and they didn't search me and I went on to do something, they would have to live with that.

"But it did make me feel like I was attacked twice, I was a victim, but also treated like a perpetrator. I was attacked on July 7, and I was attacked two weeks later for being a Muslim.

"I had a heated debate with Kate Garraway on GMTV the morning after, when she asked me how I felt about it 'as a Muslim', I'd just seen people dying, why would any producer think that that is ok to ask?"

Mustafa's newly acquired status as somebody seemingly able to speak on behalf of victims of terror and Muslims saw him appear widely in the media. But asking a young man attempting to navigate the most traumatic of experiences to act as a spokesperson for the millions of Muslims across the globe inevitably took its toll.

He became tired of having to explain that he was not guilty by association and eventually took a step back from speaking in the media.

"I was in the press quite a bit, and it came to a point where I was debating and arguing with journalists about foreign policy."

With the benefit of hindsight and maturity, Mustafa is able to understand the temptation of producers to speak with a Muslim survivor of an Islamist attack, but the weeks and months following the bombing were tough.

"I became quite reclusive," he said. "It affected work, friendships and relationships because once you experience something traumatic like that, it is hard.

"When you talk to people, they say 'that's awful' and then talk about things like catching the flu as if that means that they can relate, and they end up just talking about themselves, so eventually you stop talking about it because nobody understands.

"I remember the first time survivors came together, I felt like ET going back to the mothership - they just got without saying anything.

"Some were discussing their feelings, others were making the most insane dark jokes, that is how they dealt with it, saying things that you can't say in public - it helped.

"Meeting survivors and families was like therapy for me, and on the first anniversary, when people such as Prince Phillip and Ken Livingstone, the [then] Mayor of London, attended, it gave some closure.

"I used to go to the Hyde Park memorial a lot, but I ended up just breaking down crying to the point where my wife said, 'why do you keep going?'"

The 20th anniversary of the attack will inevitably be a day of complexity for those caught up in the horror unleashed on the streets of London.

Some will look back on how far they have come. Martine Wright competed in the paralympics and Mustafa went on to work for Google, Twitter and Meta.

But for some, they will be transported back to that day when the course of their lives was cruelly, irreversibly and involuntarily transformed.

Mustafa concludes: "When I look back it still really affects me and brings me to tears. For some survivors, they just want to forget, but for those who lost people, they want them to be remembered.

"We see tweets each year from the ambulance service or TfL, but eventually we have to move on. How many tragedies can we stop to remember?"