India suggests Pakistani hand in New Delhi blasts that killed 21
Published Monday September 15th, 2008
NEW DELHI - India's defence minister is suggesting that archrival Pakistan may have aided those responsible for a string of weekend explosions in New Delhi that killed 21 people.
Responding to a question from reporters, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said it was "a fact" that militants in India are getting support from across the border. Antony described that as a matter of "serious concern" for India.
India routinely accuses Pakistan of aiding Muslim groups believed to be behind dozens of similar attacks over the last several years.
Pakistan has denied such accusations in the past and issued a statement strongly condemning the weekend bombings.
At least five explosions struck a park and crowded shopping areas in New Delhi on Saturday, killing 21 people and wounding about 100 others.
A group calling itself the Indian Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for the attacks and for bombings in the western city of Jaipur in May that killed 61 people and July blasts in the western state of Gujarat that killed at least 45.
Police believe the group is a front for the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, which was banned in 2001.
It is unclear if the two groups are affiliated with separatists in Indian Kashmir, the country's only Muslim-majority state which is seeking independence or unification with Pakistan.
On Monday, the Anti-Terror Squad in Mumbai said it was searching for a suspected SIMI activist, identified by just one name, Tauqeer, who is believed to have sent emails claiming responsibility for Saturday's attacks.
Tauqeer, a former employee of a software company, went missing in 2001, apparently joining SIMI and going underground, said Hemant Karkare, head of the Anti-Terror Squad.
Police believe someone hacked into wireless networks in Mumbai to send emails shortly before the New Delhi and Gujarat blasts.
The government has blamed SIMI for a wave of bomb attacks that have rocked India in the last three years, killing hundreds, saying SIMI activists were working together with foreign Islamic groups.
Several alleged SIMI activists have been rounded up in recent months, but police have made little apparent headway in finding those behind the attacks.
Also Monday, a team of police officers from New Delhi headed to Gujarat to investigate similarities between the two attacks.
Police also evacuated a 12-storey building near the site of one of the New Delhi blasts after receiving a warning there was a bomb inside.
Police searched the building with sniffer dogs before they announced an all-clear.
India, a largely Hindu country, has long battled Muslim separatist violence in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
On Monday, one of the main Kashmiri militant groups, the Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, denied any connection to the Indian Mujahedeen or the attacks.
"Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is not even remotely linked to what is said to be the Indian Mujahedeen," the Rising Kashmir newspaper quoted the group's spokesman, Abdullah Ghaznavi, as saying.
"Government of India has always tried to tarnish the image of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba by linking the organization to everything that happens in India," Ghaznavi said.
On Monday, two Indian soldiers and two policemen were killed in a clash with insurgents in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.
A combined force of police and soldiers was searching for the rebels in the Poonch district, near the heavily fortified border separating the Indian and Pakistani portions of the divided Himalayan region, when they came under fire, said Kamal Saini, deputy inspector general of police.
The fighting began late Sunday and was still continuing Monday afternoon, he said.
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