Kashmiri militants claim India bombings

A CALLER yesterday claimed that a little-known Islamic group in the Kashmir insurgency was behind terror bombings that killed at least 59 people at two crowded markets on Saturday in India’s capital.

Police earlier said 61 people died in the explosions, but lowered the figure yesterday, saying some deaths had been counted twice.

Investigators were questioning numerous people after raids on dozens of small hotels across New Delhi.

Authorities said they had gathered “lots of information” about the attacks, but declined to comment on the claim of responsibility.

With security tightened in New Delhi and across many states in India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held an emergency Cabinet meeting yesterday to discuss the attacks.

Afterward, Home Minister Shivraj Patil said: “We have lots of information but it is not proper to disclose it yet.

Our people are making good progress. The investigation is going well.”

A man saying he represented the militant group Islamic Inquilab Mahaz (Front for Islamic Uprising) made the claim in a call to the Kashmir News Service in India’s portion of Kashmir, a Himalayan region also claimed by Pakistan where Muslim separatists have waged a 16-year insurgency.

The smaller group is tied to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, the most feared militant group in Kashmir, police said. US officials have linked the group to al-Qaida.

The caller, who identified himself as Ahmed Yaar Ghaznavi, said the attack “was meant as a rebuff to the claims of Indian security groups” that militant fighters had been wiped out by military crackdowns and the mammoth earthquake that hit October 8.

Mr Patil refused to comment on the claim. But a leading anti-terrorism expert said earlier that the timing and nature of the bombings appeared to indicate the work of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

The former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, Vikram Sood, said: “It looks like Lashkar. They are the most active group here.”

A police spokesman said during the day that 22 people had been detained in the hotel raids, but declined to give further details, citing the sensitive nature of the investigation. Police officials later insisted no one was detained, but said people were being questioned.

The first explosion hit at 5:45pm in New Delhi’s main Paharganj market, killing 16 people and leaving bloodstained streets and mangled stalls of wood and twisted metal. Within minutes, an explosion at the Sarojini Nagar market killed 43 people and a bomb meant for a bus in the Govindpuri neighbourhood injured nine.

Police said the three blasts wounded 188 people in all, several seriously.