Indian police suspect Bangladeshi hand in blasts

By Bappa Majumdar

JAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Police probing bombings in western India that killed 63 people said on Friday that new evidence pointed increasingly towards Indian Islamists backed by a Bangladeshi militant group as being behind the blasts.

Nine bombs, all strapped to bicycles, ripped through a crowded shopping area in the popular tourist city of Jaipur on Tuesday evening. Another 216 people were wounded.

Investigators said the attack bore hallmarks of the Bangladeshi militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami (HuJI), suspected to be behind several previous blasts in India.

"The modus operandi of the entire operation, the way the bombs were manufactured and concealed in bags are very similar to the way HuJI operates," Pankaj Singh, a senior police officer in Rajasthan state where the attacks happened, told Reuters.

"It is very possible that Indian groups helped them," Singh said in Jaipur.

Rajasthan's Parliamentary Affairs Minister R.S. Rathore said on Friday that 18 people, mainly Bangladeshi migrants, were being questioned by police. He also said the latest toll was 63 dead.

India has suffered a wave of bombings in recent years, with targets ranging from mosques and Hindu temples to trains. But few groups have ever claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Islamist militant groups in Pakistan and Bangladesh intent on fanning hatred between Muslims and Hindus in India, and damaging a fragile peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad, are often blamed for bomb attacks in India.

Bangladeshi officials said India should not jump to conclusions.

"While we don't rule out the existence of HuJI in Bangladesh we can say their activity has been drastically controlled by the security agencies here," Hasan Mahmood Khandaker, director general of the Rapid Action Battalion, told Reuters.

Indian police said they were now looking for Indian suspects and have released several sketches of people who could have been the bombers and the ones who bought bicycles in Jaipur.

An email to local media, from a group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the attack. Similar claims were made minutes before a blast in Uttar Pradesh state last year.

The email also included a video of a bicycle with a bag strapped to it and showed the bike's serial number, which the police said matched with one of the bicycles from the blast site.

Indian police said they were taking the email "very seriously", although some police officers and the chief minister have questioned its authenticity.

"Some portions of the email are definitely true, some appears to be wrong and is an attempt to mislead investigations," Singh said. "But they did get the serial number right."