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Indian police arrest man over Delhi blasts

Posted on: Sunday, 13 November 2005, 08:36 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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