Indian police said on Wednesday they had detained six suspected militants over three attacks including a bombing at a restaurant last year in western India that killed 17 people. The six men, including one Pakistani, were believed to belong to the Indian Mujahedeen, a homegrown militant group, police said in a statement.
The men are alleged to have targeted the German Bakery restaurant in Pune, the Chinnaswamy cricket stadium in the southern software hub of Bangalore and the nation’s biggest mosque, the Jama Masjid, in New Delhi. Home Minister P Chidambaram confirmed the arrests at a news conference, adding that an “investigation is still underway” into the actions of the six men.
In the blast at the German Bakery in February last year, attackers left a bomb under a table that exploded, killing 17 people.
Ten people were injured when two bombs went off outside the Bangalore cricket stadium in April 2010.
In the mosque attack in September 2010, two Taiwanese visitors who were part of a film crew were wounded when two men on a motorbike opened fire and a small car exploded. Police said they recovered guns, cartridges, detonators, doctored documents, fake Indian currency and explosives during their probe.
The Indian Mujahideen have claimed responsibility for numerous bomb attacks in Indian cities in recent years, most recently for a blast outside the Delhi High Court in September which left 15 dead.
The US State Department has designated the group a terrorist organisation, noting its “close ties” with Pakistan-based militant groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166.
