INDIA: India yesterday accused Pakistan, and a Muslim insurgent group backed by it, of being responsible for the two car bombs that exploded in its financial capital Bombay, killing 52 people and injuring 150 others.
Last night the state government in charge of India's financial capital, Bombay, said the attacks were in retaliation for religious riots in neighbouring Gujarat state.
"The blasts took place in Gujarati-dominated areas . . . it is the fallout of the riots in Gujarat. This is revenge," Home (Interior)Minister Mr Chhagan Bhujbal said. At least 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, died in communal violence in Gujarat, which borders Bombay's Maharashtra state, in 2002.
Visiting the wreckage yesterday outside the city's crowded jewellery and wholesale cloth market and adjoining the landmark Gateway of India monument where the two blasts occurred in swift succession, Deputy Prime Minister Mr Lal Krishna Advani dismissed Pakistan's condemnation of Monday's lunch-hour attack as a "mere formality".
"Pakistan sponsors terrorism not only in Kashmir state, but all across India as it is jealous of its democracy and the progress it has made over the past 50 years," the Hindu nationalist leader said. Mr Advani declared that Pakistan's censure of Bombay's bombings could be considered "in earnest" only if Islamabad handed over 19 terrorists and criminals wanted by India. New Delhi claims some of these suspects are responsible for serial bombings that rocked Bombay a decade ago, killing nearly 350 people. Pakistan denies any knowledge of those on India's list.
Opposition leader Ms Sonia Gandhi also visited Bombay and echoed Mr Advani's criticism of Pakistan, albeit without naming that country. "Terrorists are coming from outside to attack India," Ms Gandhi declared.
Officials privately dismissed Mr Advani's anti-Pakistan statements as "political rhetoric" to garner Hindu votes in elections in five states later this year for his beleaguered Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the federal coalition. There is also a general election next year.
India and Pakistan, who possess nuclear weapons and who came close to war last year, have recently embarked on peace talks. These are continuing, following the attack on India's parliament 20 months ago which was blamed on five Islamabad-backed suicide gunmen.
An Indian delegation is visiting Islamabad later this week to finalise details of resuming bilateral air links that were severed after the parliament attack. A bus service between India and Pakistan that was discontinued in December 2001 began operating last month. The respective envoys who were withdrawn when tension mounted have returned to Delhi and Islamabad.
Police and senior security officials said Monday's bomb attacks, the sixth since December last, appear to be the work of the proscribed local Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) working with Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), a militant group based near the Pakistani border city of Lahore. The Lashkar-e-Toiba group considers democracy to be one of the "menaces" inherited from the West. Hundreds of its cadres were killed during the Afghan war two years ago.
Security officials said SIMI and Lashkar-e-Toiba subscribe to the ultra-orthodox Ahl-e-Hadis conservative Muslim sect that rejects all contemporary interpretations of Islamic scriptures and operates independently in "modules" of 10 to 12 members each. After the September 11th attacks in the US, SIMI members displayed posters on buses and in public places in Muslim-majority neighbourhoods across India, praising al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Police said it had launched a state-wide hunt for four suspects, including a woman who had hired one of the taxis in which the bomb at the Gateway of India monument was placed.
The taxi-driver, who had been instructed to stay in his car by the people who hired the car, escaped the blast by going to lunch after he parked his cab. He has provided a police with a description of the suspects.
Around 200 Muslims waving the national flag and peace banners marched through Bombay yesterday to condemn the bombings.