Three detained in Kashmir linked to Delhi blast

Srinagar: Police detained three people for questioning on Thursday, including the owner of an Internet cafe, over an email allegedly claiming responsibility for Wednesday’s bombing in New Delhi that killed 12 people. The owner, his brother and an employee of the Global Cyber Cafe in Kishtwar, a city in Jammu and Kashmir, were taken in for questioning over an email allegedly linked to a powerful bomb that exploded at the entrance of the High Court. The authorities are probing the authenticity of an email claiming to be from the militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HUJI) and sent from the Internet cafe. [caption id=“attachment_79345” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Wednesday’s bombing in New Delhi that killed 12 people. AP”]  [/caption] The militant group, affiliated with al Qaeda and largely based in Pakistan but also with bases in Bangladesh, has claimed responsibility for attacks in India, but not in recent years. Media outlets said an email purportedly from the Indian Mujahideen, a home-grown radical group said to have support from Pakistan-based militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, had also claimed responsibility for the briefcase bomb attack. The email threatened to blow up a shopping mall next Tuesday. A top home ministry official told reporters that authorities had been informed of the mail and were investigating its authenticity. New Delhi and Islamabad are just rebuilding ties after peace talks were broken off following the attacks on Mumbai in 2008 when Pakistani militants rampaged through the city, leaving 166 dead. Any possible links between Wednesday’s blast and Pakistan could burden the fragile process. The government has been sharply criticised for failing to put in place sufficient security measures at such a high-profile location as the High Court in New Delhi, especially as the blast came only days before the anniversary of the 11 September, 2001 attacks in the United States. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conceded on Wednesday that militants were exploiting weaknesses in India’s security apparatus. Security sources in Indian Kashmir, who declined to be identified, have raised doubts about whether HUJI was behind the bomb, saying the group had not been active in the region for some time and would not have used an Internet cafe to send a claim of responsibility. In an email to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), allegedly from the South Asian militant group, it called on India to repeal the death sentence of a man convicted in connection with an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 and warned it would otherwise target major courts in the country. The house of another suspected member of HUJI, linked to an attack of the city of Varanasi five years ago, was raided on Wednesday, though local police said the raid was unrelated to the Delhi court blast. Reuters