Mumbai bombings: 400 detained
MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- Police have detained and questioned about 400 people believed linked to Tuesday's deadly train bombings that left 186 people dead, a senior police official in Mumbai has told CNN.
As of Thursday more than 770 people were wounded and 179 bodies were yet to be identified, police said.
The chief of Mumbai's anti-terror squad Thursday denied media reports that two suspects had been identified in connection with the probe into the bombings.
Chief K.P. Ranghubanshi told CNN's Satinder Bindra that sketches that were released earlier Thursday were of two suspects connected to an earlier arms case the police have been investigating.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts but U.S. officials said suspicion fell on two Islamic terrorist groups whose focus has been on the disputed territory of Kashmir -- Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Most of the detentions were made overnight in Malwani, a northeastern suburb of Mumbai, which was formerly named Bombay, police Inspector S. Goshal said, according to The Associated Press.
Mumbai Police Commissioner A.N. Roy said those arrested include known thugs and trouble makers, who might have information about the culprits.
Local television reported that many of those detained had been picked up from hotels and guest houses in the financial capital.
Investigators, meanwhile, said they had prepared sketches of three suspects seen at some of the bomb sites and were working on several leads, Reuters says.
Timers hidden in pencils were discovered Wednesday in at least three of the seven sites where the bombs exploded, according to CNN's sister station, CNN-IBN.
The timers are believed to have detonated bombs made of RDX, one of the most powerful kinds of military explosives, the network quoted police as saying Wednesday.
However, CNN could not independently confirm the discovery of the timers or the material used in the explosives.
Police said the pencil timers were found at blast sites in Matunga station, Mahim and Borivili -- where authorities on Tuesday defused another bomb found after an initial explosion ripped apart a rail car.
Forensic tests were also performed on a leather bag found at one of the stations, as well as on other items collected there.
Authorities said the bombs all appeared to have been planted on trains that left the Churchgate station in Mumbai.
The blasts hit trains at Khar, Mahim, Matunga, Jogeshwari, Borivili and Bhayander stations, in that order. The seventh explosion hit a train between the Khar and Santacruz stations, a police official told CNN-IBN.
Both Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have been implicated in previous attacks that involved coordinated bombings during peak times in India, the officials said.
Asked whether Lashkar, which in a statement Wednesday denied any role in the bombings, was involved, state police chief P.S. Pasricha was reported by The Associated Press as saying: "It is difficult to say definitely at this stage, but Lashkar-e-Tayyiba can be involved going by the style of attack."
Pasricha said officials had known for some time that Mumbai was a target.
"We had an idea since some months that Bombay was a target," Pasricha told reporters. "Since it is the financial capital, there are many vulnerable areas in the city. Targets are well known."
On March 7, 14 people were killed in attacks on a temple and a rail station in Varanasi. On March 12, 1993, more than 250 people were killed in Mumbai when 13 bombs exploded in several locations in the city.
Despite a statement Tuesday from Pakistan condemning the blasts, India's government denounced other comments from Pakistani officials linking the dispute over Kashmir to the attacks.
"We find it appalling that (Pakistan) Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri should seek to link this act of terror to the lack of resolution of the dispute between India and Pakistan," said Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna.
"His remarks appear to suggest that Pakistan will cooperate with India against the scourge of terrorist violence only if the so-called disputes are resolved," Sarna added.
CNN Correspondents Seth Doane and Ram Ramgopal contributed to this report.
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Associated Press
contributed to this report.
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