NEW DELHI, 31 October 2005 — A little-known group linked to Kashmiri separatists yesterday claimed responsibility for Saturday’s serial blasts in Delhi that killed 59 people and injured over 200. Police said they had detained 22 people and were questioning them.

“We have lots of information but it is not proper to disclose it yet,” Home Minister Shivraj Patil told journalists after an emergency Cabinet meeting. “Our people are making good progress. The investigation is going well.”

Security was tightened in New Delhi and across many other states. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh denounced the apparently coordinated bombings, describing them as “dastardly acts of terrorism.”

“These blasts have been timed to create disaffection during the festival season,” he said in a brief television statement. “We shall defeat their nefarious designs and will not allow them to succeed. We are resolute in our commitment to fighting terrorism.”

A man saying he represented the militant group “Islamic Inquilab Mahaz,” or “Front for Islamic Uprising,” took responsibility for the bombings in a call to the Kashmir News Service. The little-known group is tied to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, police said.

The caller, who identified himself as Ahmed Yaar Ghaznavi, said the attack “was meant as a rebuff to the claims of Indian security groups” that Kashmiri fighters had been wiped out by military crackdowns and the Oct. 8 South Asian earthquake.

“Such attacks will continue until India pulls out all its troops from the state (of Kashmir) and stops inhuman activities in the state,” the man said.

The claim of the group is yet to be verified, Karnail Singh, joint commissioner of police, told a news conference. “We know that it was created in 1996 and it has not been very active but it has links with Lashkar-e-Taiba,” he said.

The home minister refused to comment on the claim, but a leading anti-terrorism expert said earlier that the timing and nature of the blasts appeared to indicate the work of the Lashkar. “It looks like Lashkar. They are the most active group here,” said Vikram Sood, the former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency.

Police said they were looking for a man in his 20s who on Saturday evening refused to buy a ticket on a bus and got off in the Govindpuri neighborhood, leaving behind a large black bag. When some of the 40 passengers raised an alarm, the driver and bus conductor examined it and threw it out just as the blast occurred, injuring them both as well as seven others.

A police spokesman said 22 people had been detained, but declined to give further details. Joint Commissioner Karnail Singh later insisted “no one was under detention, but (that) numerous people were being questioned.”

Several television stations reported that many small hotels in the capital were raided, but Singh declined to confirm the raids.

Police appealed to residents for information and placed the city’s three railway stations and main bus terminal under scrutiny, a police spokesman said. “We are also working in tandem with our counterparts in Jammu and Kashmir for a lead,” said a security source.

A police officer with knowledge of the investigations said forensic experts were probing whether the explosive RDX had been used in the attack, since witnesses said the biggest blast caused a huge ball of fire that the explosive commonly creates. Some militant groups in Kashmir are known to have expertise in using RDX.

Police yesterday put the casualty figures at 59 dead and 210 wounded from the three explosions. The first explosion in the Pahargunj market killed 16 people while the one in Sarojini Nagar killed 43. The bus blast in the Govindpuri district injured nine.

— Additional input from agencies