August 27, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 28, 1424

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MUMBAI, Aug 26: Indian officials on Tuesday blamed radical Muslim groups allegedly linked to Pakistan for twin car bombings in Mumbai that killed 52 people the previous day and said they could be revenge for the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat last year.

Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, touring the wreckage outside a temple and near a monument, stopped short of accusing Pakistan of responsibility, but dismissed its condemnation of the attack as a “mere formality”.

Mr Advani asked Pakistan to hand over 19 people on India’s wanted list.

“If Pakistan does this, only then will I accept their condemnation, which was issued yesterday, as honest — otherwise it is a mere formality.”

“The progress made by India in the past 50 years is hurting Pakistan and because of this they have waged this war of terrorism against us,” Mr Advani said.

“It (terrorism) is not just in (occupied) Jammu and Kashmir or (East) Punjab or Delhi, but it is across the country,” he said.

Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, on a visit to Singapore, said “there are certain patterns which link it (the attack) to international terrorist groups”, but said he would reserve judgment until there was “hard evidence”.

Police and government officials based in Mumbai said Monday’s lunch-hour attacks, which also wounded some 150 people, appeared to be the work of local militants working with the Lashkar-i-Taiba.

At the height of last year’s standoff, India had issued a list of 20 people it said were criminals being harboured by Pakistan and demanded they be extradited. One has since been arrested in Dubai.

Most of those on the list were implicated in underworld activities, including a series of bombings in Mumbai 10 years ago that left around 300 people dead.

Chhagan Bhujpal, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, said there was “no doubt” the attacks were linked to the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat last year that left dead some 2,000 people.

The car bombings were the seventh major attack in Mumbai in the past eight months. —AFP