Indian detectives scrambled for a breakthrough on Friday into the Mumbai bombings that killed 17 people and left baffled police hunting for clues and suspects in the monsoon rains. There were fears that the torrential downpours that have hit the country’s financial and entertainment capital since the rush-hour blasts on Wednesday evening may hamper the probe, washing away vital forensic clues.
Teams of detectives have begun the painstaking process of scouring grainy security camera footage taken from the three bomb sites in south and south central Mumbai to try to put together a complete picture of what happened. Home Secretary RK Singh told reporters in New Delhi on Friday that investigators were sifting through 11 CDs’ worth of footage to identify people.
“It is a voluminous work,” he said, adding that police now know the identity of the owner of a scooter in which one of the bombs was hidden. Forensic examination of debris has already indicated that the bombs, hidden in the crowded streets, used ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser ingredient commonly used in improvised explosive devices.
On Thursday evening, the head of the Maharashtra state Anti-Terrorism Squad, Rakesh Maria, admitted that seasonal rainstorms had hindered the scientists.
“Because of (the) rain, it will take a little longer for them to provide us details about the other aspects of the explosive device,” he said. Devices using ammonium nitrate have been used in the past by a home-grown militant outfit, the Indian Mujahideen, which has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks across India in recent years. Two suspected members of the group were arrested in Mumbai last week in connection with attacks in the western city of Ahmedabad in 2008 and are now being questioned about the latest bombings, India’s interior ministry said in a statement.
Singh was asked about possible “cross-border” involvement in the attacks – meaning Pakistani militants. He said investigators were following up on an email “which originated elsewhere” but did not elaborate.
Maria declined to speculate on who was responsible and struck a note of caution about reports that a severed head found at one of the scenes and a body embedded with wires suggested a suicide attack. “We are not confining ourselves to any one group. At the moment all possibilities are being examined,” he told reporters.
“As the investigation progresses, the angles, the possibilities narrow down and we will be able to pinpoint the individuals responsible for this.” The chief minister of Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chavan, was also cautious but said indications that remote-control timers were discovered “logically” ruled out the possibility of a suicide attack.
India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has vowed that those responsible will face swift justice.
But Indian newspapers on Friday focused on the lack of an immediate breakthrough, amid widespread anger at the return of terror to the city after the 2008 attacks on Mumbai that left 166 people dead and more than 300 wounded.
“Intel: 0 Leads: 0” said a frontpage headline on the local Daily News and Analysis, questioning Interior Minister P Chidambaram’s assertion on Thursday that there had been no intelligence failure.
