Indian police round up bomb suspects

Police trawl slums and criminal hideouts in Delhi, rounding up suspects after bombs kill at least 21 people.

An Indian woman cries after seeing the body of a relative killed in a series of coordinated bomb attacks in New Delhi, on Sept 13 2008.

NEW DELHI // Indian police trawled slums and criminal hideouts in India's capital today, rounding up suspects after yesterday's serial bombings killed at least 21 people and wounded nearly 100. Police said they were pursuing 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. At hospitals though, relatives of victims accused police of failing to protect them. "Down with the police," they shouted, some with tears in their eyes. "We don't trust you any more".

Indians have also begun to express frustration at the inability of authorities to prevent the string of bomb attacks in recent months. Some women prayed at a small temple inside one of the hospitals, others cried. Some rushed about frantically looking for their missing relatives. "He is my brother Ramesh, please help me trace him," said Sarabjit Singh, pointing to a photograph.

At least five bombs exploded in quick succession in crowded markets and streets in the heart of New Delhi last night. A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen sent an e-mail to television stations shortly after the first explosion saying it was responsible. The group has sent similar e-mails before or after several major attacks in India in recent months.

"Eye for an eye. The dust will never settle down," the e-mail is reported to have read. "Our intense, accurate and successive attacks ... will continue to punish you even before your earlier wounds have healed," it said, referring to bomb attacks in Indian cities in May and July that together killed more than 120. Throughout last night, hundreds of people, mostly residents of the New Delhi neighbourhoods hit by bombs, were questioned by policebefore being allowed to go.

"We have detained 10-12 people for further questioning," said Rajan Bhagat of Delhi Police, adding that no formal arrests had been made. Police said they were studying footage from closed-circuit television cameras at two of the markets hit by bombs."We need to see if there is anything in it," said H G S Dhaliwal, a deputy police commissioner. The National Counter terrorism Centre in Washington, US, 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 in Iraq.

The investigation net widened to the financial capital of Mumbai after it was found the e-mail had originated from there. "We have located the IP address to a company in Chembur," said an anti-terrorism squad official, referring to a Mumbai suburb. "It looks like a Wi-Fi connection was hacked into." Mumbai, which has seen some of India's worst attacks, was also linked to co-ordinated bombings in the western city of Ahmedabad in July after another e-mail was traced to the city.

The Indian Mujahideen has earlier claimed to be avenging the killing of some 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, in a 2002 riot in the western state of Gujarat. Minutes after one of the blasts in central Delhi, police detained an 11-year-old balloon seller who claimed to have seen two men drop a black plastic into a dustbin which had exploded. "They were tall men, wearing black clothes," the boy told reporters before being whisked away by police.

Investigations into bomb attacks in India over the years have followed a familiar pattern. Bombs go off, police round up suspects, usually Muslims, and then the trail goes cold. Last week, the chief cleric of Delhi's biggest mosque, Maulana Syed Ahmed Bukhari, met the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to complain that innocent Muslims were being arrested "in the name of terrorist activities". * Reuters