NEW DELHI, 11 September 2006 — A deadly triple bombing targeting Muslims in western India has served as grim reminder of India’s festering terrorism problem with analysts saying violence is spreading across the nation.

Thirty-one people were killed and 300 hurt when bombs exploded near a mosque in Malegaon in Maharashtra state Friday as Muslims prepared for the festival of Shab-e-Barat, or the Night of Blessing, when they pray for the dead. “It just keeps getting worse,” said the Times of India above a picture of a bloodstained Muslim man, his hand resting on the forehead of a wounded companion in hospital. “There’s a far greater dispersal of attacks than before,” said Ajai Sahni, an intelligence analyst who tracks terrorist groups in South Asia. “Earlier you had a much higher number of total fatalities in terrorist attacks but they were all concentrated in (insurgency-hit) Jammu and Kashmir. We find now these attacks are being dispersed across the country,” said Sahni.

There was no claim of responsibility for the Malegaon blasts, which came two months after explosions killed 187 rail commuters in India’s financial hub Mumbai, north of Malegaon. Most of those victims were Hindus. Investigators blamed those blasts on Islamic rebels opposed to New Delhi’s rule in Kashmir but have made no major arrests.

The Mumbai attack came four months after at least 15 people were killed and 60 wounded in three explosions in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi. Last October 66 people were killed when three blasts ripped through markets in the Indian capital New Delhi on the eve of a major Hindu festival.

“Earlier it was confined to Kashmir but now at no point can we say we’re safe,” said S. Chandrasekharan, analyst at India’s South Asia Analysis Group. Indian security forces have been battling for 17 years to crush a separatist uprising in Indian Kashmir. “Now there is fear across many parts of India that anything could happen which wasn’t the case three or four years back,” said Kanchan Lakshman, a research fellow at India’s Institute for Conflict Management.

Analysts said it was too early to say who was to blame for the explosions in Malegoan, a mixed Hindu-Muslim town seen as a religious tinderbox. But Sahni said it was unlikely to be any Hindu group. “Given the degree of coordination required, I do not know of any Hindu organization with these capacities,” he said. “This is an unprecedented attack — there have been minor incidents outside mosques but nothing so focused.” Whatever group was responsible was “out to exploit India’s Hindu-Muslim fault lines” said Rahul Bedi, correspondent of Jane’s Defense Weekly. Muslims make up over 130 million of mainly Hindu but secular India’s one billion-plus population. The bombers’ plan is “to see that different sections of the society clash and create more difficulty, more turmoil,” said Home Minister Shivraj Patil.

The blasts came days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned India of more bloody attacks and stressed the need for better intelligence. “Reports suggest terrorist modules and ‘sleeper cells’ exist in some of our urban areas, all of which highlight the seriousness of the threat,” Singh said.

India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of fomenting violence against Indian targets, a charge which Islamabad rejects. New Delhi says it wants to see Musharraf to show a “willingness ... to work together with India to deal with what Pakistan itself says is a shared threat of terrorism.”

On Friday, India said the fate of stalled peace talks between the neighbors hinged on a meeting next week between Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. The talks were put on ice after the Mumbai blasts that New Delhi said could not have occurred without help from Pakistan-based groups.

New Delhi says it wants to see Musharraf in the upcoming talks to show a “willingness ... to work together with India to deal with what Pakistan itself says is a shared threat of terrorism.”