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| India-Pakistan |
| Delhi bombings: Police make arrests |
| 2008-09-14 |
| Police launched raids across the Indian capital today, detaining about a dozen people as part of efforts to track down the bombers responsible for a series of blasts that left more than 20 dead and 100 injured in Delhi. Five explosions within half an hour caused havoc in one of the city's central parks and crowded shopping areas on Saturday evening - one of the busiest times of the weekend. Television and newspapers put the death toll at 30. Police yesterday confirmed 21 bodies. Police said they were studying CCTV footage from two of the markets hit by bombs. A further three bombs, also placed in crowded areas of the capital, were found and defused. About a dozen people had been detained in the raids, believed to have targeted mainly Muslim areas of the city. A group called Islamic Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the bombings in an email, written in English and sent to several Indian news organisations. Islamic Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for a string of bomb attacks in Indian cities in May and July that together killed more than 120. Police said they had several leads, including talking to an 11-year-old boy who said he had seen two men drop off a large plastic bag at one of the blast sites. Although Indian police have been quick to round up suspects, it has had little success in convicting perpetrators. After earlier attacks many people were arrested but charges have yet to be filed. Last week, Maulana Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the head of Jama Masjid, Delhi's biggest mosque, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to complain that innocent Muslims were being arrested "in the name of terrorist activities". In its email, Islamic Mujahideen warned India's richest man, billionaire Mukesh Ambani, not to build a 60-storey home on land in Mumbai that was once the spot of a Muslim charity. It also attacked the Indian media for biased coverage. Police in Mumbai said they were investigating the possibility that the email had been sent from a hacked wireless network in a household in Mumbai's Chembur suburb. "Preliminary investigations show the email may have been sent from Chembur," Mumbai police Chief Hasan Gafoor told reporters. After the July blasts, authorities questioned an American citizen living in Mumbai when an investigation revealed that the bombers apparently accessed his wireless network to send an email claiming responsibility. Although India is seen as relatively peaceful compared to neighbouring Pakistan, there have been concerns about the rising number of bombings. The National Counterterrorism Centre in Washington says 3,674 people had been killed in militant attacks in India between January 2004 and March 2007, a death toll second only to that of Iraq. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #1 When are they going after the culprits in Karachi, Rawalpindi, and Hyderabad? Don't do half a job, do it all, and do it right. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-09-14 14:12 |