Police Seek Clues in New Delhi Debris

Jittery customers trickled back to busy shopping districts hit by the blasts. Police heightened security throughout the city and scurried to respond to several reports of suspicious packages, including one at a school for the blind. None turned out to be a threat.

Home Secretary Shivraj Patil said that investigators had gathered "lots of information" about Saturday's three bombings, which struck two crowded markets and a public bus within half an hour. In addition to the 59 killed, 210 people were injured.

Patil declined to describe the nature of the leads or to name possible suspects, but attention increasingly focused on the Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, based in the contested region of Kashmir. A small, lesser-known separatist group called Inqilabi, or Revolution, telephoned a Kashmiri news service to claim responsibility for the explosions.

Police characterized the latter group as a small outfit in existence since 1996 but not very active of late. There was immediate speculation that the group was linked to, or a front for, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Analysts say that Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Pure, is one of the few militant groups operating in India that would have been capable of organizing a precisely timed, large-scale attack. The group was implicated in the last major terrorist strike on New Delhi, an assault on Parliament in 2001 that nearly sparked a fourth war between India and longtime rival and fellow nuclear power Pakistan.

The two nations have since engaged in a slow-moving peace process. The most recent sign of progress was Sunday's announcement of an agreement to open several crossing points in Kashmir for families and relief groups struggling to deal with the aftermath of the Himalayan region's devastating Oct. 8 earthquake.

Analysts said the bombers might have been aiming to disrupt the peace process. Kashmiri armed groups might also have wanted to dispel widespread reports that their membership and operations had been severely crippled by the quake.

"It becomes incumbent upon them to prove their capabilities," said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. "It's part of the effort to keep Kashmir up in the headlines and to keep applying pressure on India wherever possible."