(Reuters) -
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vowed on Thursday to bring to
justice those behind triple bomb attacks on India's financial capital
Mumbai, and police questioned members of a home-grown Islamist militant
group.
No group has claimed
responsibility for Wednesday's attacks, the most deadly since
Pakistan-based militants struck India's financial hub in 2008, killing
166 people and raising tensions with nuclear rival Pakistan.
Indian
authorities have yet to say publicly who they believe was responsible
for the three near-simultaneous blasts during the evening rush hour,
which killed 18 people and injured 133 others.
The
blasts have heaped pressure on Singh as he struggles to overcome a
series of graft scandals that have boosted a resurgent opposition and
led to policy paralysis in Asia's third largest economy.
"The
terrorists had the advantage of surprise," Singh said in rare public
comments outside a hospital after meeting some of the injured. "This
time there was no advance indication.
"Now our task is to find out who the culprits are and how we can work together to bring them to justice," he said.
As
police sifted forensic evidence and security camera footage, Home
(interior) Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said it was too early to
point the finger at a particular group.
The
"coordinated terror attacks" could be retaliation for police action
that led to a number of arrests and disrupted a plots, he said, adding
that the lack of prior warning did not represent a failure by the
intelligence agencies.
The home
ministry said in a statement police were interrogating some Indian
Mujahideen members who were arrested days before the attack, but that it
had no specific leads on who might be responsible.
The
Indian Mujahideen is a home-grown militant group known for its
city-to-city bombing campaigns using small explosive devices planted in
restaurants, at bus stops and on busy streets.
The
group has been accused of ties to Pakistani militant groups involved in
attacks in Indian Kashmir as well as elsewhere in the country.
"It's
very likely coordinated by Indian Mujahideen looking at the severity
and scale of the attacks -- in the past they've used tiffin carrier
bombs and IEDs," said Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based al Qaeda
expert. Tiffin carriers are steel containers used to carry lunch in
India.
The bombings were the most
deadly attacks on Mumbai since the 2008 assaults killed 166 people and
raised tensions with nuclear rival Pakistan.
After
a two-year chill, India and Pakistan have been trying to normalise ties
and later in July their foreign ministers are due to hold talks.
Pakistani
leaders were swift in condemning the bombings, as was U.S. President
Barack Obama. Top U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also due in
India for talks next week.
Any
suggestion Pakistan-based groups were involved in the attack would
complicate Islamabad's already fraught relationship with New Delhi and
further unravel Pakistan's ties with the United States.
"We
live in the most troubled neighbourhood in the world. Pakistan and
Afghanistan are the epicentre of terrorism," said Chidambaram, adding
that Pakistan had still not given India support in pursuing those behind
the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.
India's main opposition, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accused the government of being lax.
"These
repeated attacks on Bombay (Mumbai) should be viewed as a policy
failure. It is not an intelligence failure," said top BJP leader L.K.
Advani, a former deputy prime minister.
JEWELLERY TARGETS
Mumbai,
a coastal city of 20 million people that is home to India's main stock
exchanges, has a long history of deadly bombings and Wednesday's attacks
did not rattle financial markets.
The
bombings were centred mainly on south Mumbai's bustling jewellery
market districts, crowded with diamond and precious metals traders and
artisans.
"These IEDs were not
crude devices, but it seems that they were made with some
sophistication. Those who made them had prior training," Home Secretary
Raj Kumar Singh, the ministry's top civil servant, told reporters. He
said they were detonated by some sort of timer device.
Police
were investigating whether electric wires found attached to a body had
anything to do with the bombs, he said. U.K. Bansal, India's top
internal security official, did not rule out the possibility of a
suicide bomber but said there was no firm evidence yet.
(Writing by
Paul de Bendern; Editing by
Jon Boyle;
additional reporting by James Pomfret, Annie Banerji and C.J. Kuncheria
in NEW DELHI, Rosemary Arackaparambil, Rajendra Jadhav, Tony Munroe and
Jui Chakravorty in MUMBAI)
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