NEW DELHI: Police officers trawled slums and criminal hideouts in India’s capital yesterday rounding up suspects after serial bombings in the city a day earlier 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.”
“Helpless?” read the banner headline of the Sunday Times newspaper, expressing growing frustration at the inability of authorities to prevent a 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 on Saturday night.
A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen (IM) sent an e-mail to television stations shortly after the first explosion saying it was responsible.
The group, believed to be an offshoot of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India, 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 Hindustan Times quoted the e-mail as saying.
“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 Saturday night, hundreds of people, mostly residents of the New Delhi neighborhoods hit by bombs, were questioned before 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 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 coordinated 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.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital to enquire about the condition of the blast victims and spoke with doctors attending to the injured.
Indian cities remained on high alert as additional police were deployed around vital installations, religious places and market areas in major cities.
There was an uneasy calm in Delhi yesterday as police increased patrols and erected barricades at various parts in the city. The usual Sunday crowds at popular shopping areas and cinema halls were missing and the markets which were targeted remained shut.
A tight vigil was being maintained at the airports, metro stations, malls, hospitals and other crowded areas.
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has criticized the Manmohan Singh government for its failure to tackle terrorism and called for stronger anti-terrorist laws. 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 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to complain that innocent Muslims were being arrested “in the name of terrorist activities.”
