Police said yesterday they were looking at Hindu or Muslim extremist groups in the investigation of blasts that killed 31 outside a mosque in western India, but the probe had made little headway.
Analysts said the devastating attack that injured nearly 300 would mark a significant watershed if it was proved Hindu hardliners were involved.
"We're keeping our minds open to any kind of involvement," said P.K. Jain, the district's police chief. "The investigation is quite widespread."
He denied that the intelligence community had ignored threats from Hindu hardliners after a series of attacks blamed on Islamic militants including July's Mumbai train blasts that killed nearly 190 people.
Little movement
Investigators blamed those blasts on Islamic rebels opposed to New Delhi's rule in Kashmir. Mumbai is the state capital of Maharashtra.
"Whatever splinter groups there are, they are very much under watch," Jain told reporters.
But he admitted that the investigation had not moved far since Friday's attacks.
"We released two sketches of two suspects. That's the only headway that we've made," he said. "There are other leads that we are investigating."
Bombs attached to bicycles went off outside a mosque at Malegaon in western India as thousands of worshippers attended Friday prayers to mark Shab-e-Bharat, an Islamic festival and a day devoted to prayer.
The attack is being viewed as a deliberate attempt to hit Muslim worshippers or to spark wider disturbances in an area of Maharashtra state with a history of communal violence.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the Malegaon blasts and the country's political leadership have not identified any group suspected of the attack.
Police have released artists' sketches of two men believed to have bought two bicycles used for the attacks and said test results on explosive debris were due yesterday.
Indian media yesterday said the focus of intelligence gathering had been on Islamic militants with little information on right-wing Hindus blamed for much smaller attacks outside mosques in 2002 and 2003.
"Police grope in the dark on Hindu groups," said a headline in yesterday's Times of India.
It quoted unnamed officials sources saying the "entire machinery" of intelligence gathering was focused on Islamic militants.
Hindu link
Police were probing links between previous bomb attacks on mosques by Hindus reportedly linked to right-wing group Bajrang Dal, according to the newspaper.
The Bajrang Dal is among a group of nationalist organizations that have vowed to protect India's Hindu identity.
Four alleged members died while making bombs in western India earlier this year, the newspaper said.
But its parent organisation, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, denied any Hindu organisation was involved.
"One cannot conclude that Hindu organizations are behind the blasts in Malegaon just because they occurred at a Muslim shrine," VHP leader Praveen Togadia told reporters according to the Press Trust of India.
S. Chandrasekharan, analyst at India's South Asia Analysis Group, said it would be a "major watershed" if Hindus were behind the attacks but warned that little had been unearthed so far by the inquiry.
"It's the first time the majority community would have retaliated in the same form. It would be a serious matter for the country if it's proved," the analyst said.
Hindus are the majority of India's 1.1 billion population, with Muslims numbering 130 million.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion