Indian police arrest man over Delhi blasts

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian police have arrested a man
from Kashmir who they said coordinated and financed last
month’s devastating blasts in New Delhi that killed 66 people,
a senior police officer said on Sunday.

Police said investigations revealed the salesman from
Srinagar had links with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group
that India blamed for the triple bombings in the Indian capital
just days ahead of major Hindu and Muslim festivals.

Lashkar, outlawed in 2002 after being blamed for a bloody
attack on the Indian parliament, has earlier denied it was
involved in the New Delhi blasts that left some 200 people
wounded.

“The investigation has revealed that these blasts were the
handiwork of militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba,” Delhi
police commissioner K.K. Paul told a news conference.

“In the first week of October 2005, the conspiracy of
causing bomb explosions in Delhi was hatched by the LeT
militants.”

Kaul said the man — who was arrested in Srinagar, the
summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, and had been brought
to New Delhi for questioning — was the main coordinator and
financier of the blasts.

The arrest came as India and Pakistan failed to make
headway in a slow-moving peace process at a South Asian
regional summit in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.

The South Asian rivals have set aside decades of hostility
over disputed Kashmir to provide some aid to survivors of a
deadly earthquake, including setting up new crossing points
along their heavily militarized frontier.

But last month, tensions flared again after the three bombs
which New Delhi said was the work of Pakistan-based militants
seeking to end India’s control over its part of Kashmir.

Pakistan has promised to cooperate in investigating the
Delhi attacks but has asked for evidence of who was behind the
blasts.

A team of about 1,000 Indian police have been chasing clues
and hunting for attackers behind the blasts.

Last week, Indian troops picked up another suspected
Islamic militant from Jammu, the winter capital of the
Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir, who they said was a
member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

However, Delhi police later said that man was not involved
in the blasts.