India probes Delhi blasts, Government under fire

INDIA: Indian police planned to release sketches Monday of suspects behind New Delhi bombings that left more than 20 dead, as criticism grew over the lack of a coherent national counter-terrorism policy.

Karnal Singh, a senior police official investigating the five bombs that ripped through crowded markets in the Indian capital on Saturday, said several people had been taken in for questioning but no arrests had been made.

The attacks were claimed by the Indian Mujahideen, a shadowy Muslim militant group that also owned responsibility for bombings in July that killed at least 45 people in the cities of Ahmedabad and Bangalore. “We hope to release suspect sketches today,” Singh said.

The Delhi blasts were the fourth in a major Indian city in as many months, and have refuelled debate over the ability of the security and intelligence forces to prevent such attacks and bring those responsible to justice.

“We are at war,” was the blunt assessment of an editorial in the Times of India.

“When a country is at war, there cannot be any half measures to hit back and contain the enemy.”

The newspaper said the time had come for India’s political parties to cast aside their differences and “put their heads together to figure out a counter-strategy for which consensus will be essential.”

In 2004, India’s new Congress-led government scrapped an anti-terror law introduced by its Hindu nationalist predecessor after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Congress argued that the legislation, which gave sweeping powers to the police, was being misused to settle political scores.

New Delhi, Monday,

AFP