NYT : India Blames Islamic Militants for Blasts

India Blames Islamic Militants for Blasts

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | August 27, 2007

HYDERABAD, India, Aug. 26 (AP) — Indian officials said Sunday that Islamic militants based in Pakistan and Bangladesh were responsible for twin bombings that killed at least 42 people in Hyderabad on Saturday.

Officials said extremists wanted to foment tension between India’s Hindu majority and its Muslim minority, though they provided little evidence linking Islamic militants to the blasts in Hyderabad. Many Muslims here say Hindu extremists are behind the attacks.

“Available information points to the involvement of terrorist organizations based in Bangladesh and Pakistan,” Y. S. R. Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh State, of which Hyderabad is the capital, told reporters after an emergency state cabinet meeting on Sunday.

Mr. Reddy did not identify the groups or provide proof, saying “it is not possible to divulge all this information.”

A top government official said India was struggling to stop terrorist attacks. “Our country is so big that even if we have the information that something is planned, we do not know where or when,” said Shivraj Patil, India’s home minister.

He did not say if the authorities had advance warning of the blasts, which went off nearly simultaneously at an outdoor auditorium in a park and at a popular restaurant. They were the latest in a series of deadly bombings in India in the past two years that have killed hundreds in India’s capital, New Delhi, its financial center, Mumbai, and other cities.

Indian news media reports, quoting unidentified security officials, said the group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, based in Bangladesh, was behind the attacks. The group, which wants to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh, has been known to attack non-Bangladeshi targets, including Western diplomats.

Bangladesh condemned the bombings and rejected the allegation that Bangladeshi groups were involved.

Pakistan also reacted angrily to Mr. Reddy’s comments, characterizing them as an “irresponsible” reaction.

“They have been making these allegations, and nothing ever came out of those allegations — and yet they continue maligning Pakistan,” said Tasnim Aslam, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

“Only the Indians have this kind of some supernatural powers that as soon as some terrorist act takes place they know how it happened and who is responsible,” she said.

Indian officials have said other bombings over the past two years have been conducted by Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Pure, a militant Islamic group based in Pakistan that has fought Indian forces in Indian-administered Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim area.

More than 80 percent of India’s 1.1 billion people are Hindu and 13 percent are Muslim. In Hyderabad, Muslims make up 40 percent of the population. In May, at least 13 people were killed in a bombing at a 17th-century mosque here and the subsequent clashes between worshipers and security forces.