Blasts Blamed on Established Terrorists

The bombers who killed close to 200 train passengers during Mumbai's evening rush hour yesterday hid their explosives in overhead luggage racks in first-class compartments and detonated them by timers, Indian police said today.

The virtually simultaneous attacks were "well-planned and well executed", and probably used an explosive known as RDX, a high quality and very destructive military explosive. This suggested they were the work of an established terrorist group which did not need to use suicide bombers.

It was not known whether the bombers were deliberately targeting richer commuters in a city which is one of India's most affluent, with a powerful stock exchange and the Bollywood film industry. Six of the seven bombs went off in first-class carriages which are usually in the middle of the trains. As well as killing people closest to it, a bomb there would be more likely to derail other carriages.

The number of bombs points to a relatively sophisticated operation by people who knew how to set timers and get away well before the explosion.

Most speculation blames the Pakistani-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba which is fighting to end Indian rule in Kashmir, but the Indian government has not officially named it. A Lashkar spokesman, Abdullah Ghaznavi, said his group was not involved. "These killings are inhuman," he said. "Our jihad is only against the Indian troops in Kashmir. Islam does not allow the killing of innocent people."

Ajai Sahni, director of the Institute for Conflict Management, described the denial as "absolute nonsense". "They always deny incidents in which large numbers of civilians die. They regularly hit army and police targets in Jammu and Kashmir, but they don't have the capacity to do that in India, so they go after civilians," he told the Guardian by phone from Delhi.

The group was linked, he said, to the Students Islamic Movement of India, which has roots in Maharashtra state and recruits there. "Recent arrests and intelligence reports of the interrogations have shown the Pakistani state is involved in backing these groups. The cumulative evidence is overwhelming."

Mr Sahni blamed Pakistan's intelligence establishment, the Inter-services Intelligence, for arming and equipping Lashkar-e-Taiba which operates openly in Pakistan where its leader gives regular interviews.

But Indian officials are drawing back from accusing Pakistan or even naming Lashkar-e-Taiba as the organisers of Tuesday's attacks. D K Sankaran, the chief secretary of Maharashtra, said: "So far we do not have any information linking the blasts to any particular outfit."