BOMBAY, 15 July 2006 — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday blamed Pakistan for the Bombay train bombings and alleged that the attackers had support “from across the border.” Addressing a crowded press conference at the airport at the end of his visit, Manmohan warned that the peace process with Pakistan could be harmed.

The premier, on his first visit to Bombay since the blasts that killed 200 and injured over 700, warned that the peace process would struggle to advance unless Pakistan cracked down on militants operating from its soil.

“The terrorists were supported by elements across the border without which they cannot hit with such effect,” Manmohan said.

“I explained to the government of Pakistan ... that if such acts of terrorism are not controlled, it is exceedingly difficult for any government to carry forward what may be called the normalization of relations and the peace process,” he said.

Pakistan immediately denied Manmohan’s claims. “These allegations are unsubstantiated, we have already rejected them,” Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP.

Manmohan who arrived here in the afternoon drove straight to the Sion Hospital first and later to the KEM Hospital where he went around the wards and visited the people injured in the blasts.

Earlier yesterday, Bombay Police Commissioner A.N. Roy said a man known only as Rahil was the third person being sought in connection with the blasts. The photos of two other suspects were released Thursday. The nationalities of the three men have not been given. Investigators are casting a wide net in their hunt for the assailants — scrutinizing a Pakistan-based militant network, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, along with smaller homegrown groups.

A Home Ministry official said that among the leads being followed by investigators was the possible involvement of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India.

The investigation also spread to neighboring Nepal where police said yesterday they had arrested two Pakistanis in connection with the seizure of RDX explosives in the country’s capital, Katmandu, in 2001. They said the two men are also being investigated for links to the Bombay blasts.

Anti-terrorist police, under pressure to produce a breakthrough, said they were pursuing “important leads” but added the identity of the group behind the blasts remained “hazy.”

“We’re exploring every single angle. We have some picture in view but it’s very hazy,” Additional Commissioner of Police Jayjit Singh said. Police tracked telephone calls to Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Middle East yesterday in their search for the culprits behind the bombings. A telephone call traced from Karachi to Dhaka after the blasts said “congratulations,” the Times of India reported.

The newspaper said another caller contacted his mother in Karachi from a public call box in Bombay saying he was fine but could not disclose his location, and swiftly hung up.

Pakistan dismissed the report as “frivolous” and repeated President Pervez Musharraf’s offer to support the probe into the worst terrorist incident in India for 13 years.

— With input from agencies