Kashmiri militant confesses to New Delhi bombing
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-11-09 17:12

A Kashmiri militant has confessed in detention to planting one of three bombs that exploded in New Delhi and killed 62 people last month before a Hindu festival, the Indian army said.

"The army has picked up Ghulam Mohiuddin Lone of Banihal area in Doda district of Kashmir, who has confessed that he was involved in the Paharganj bomb blast in New Delhi," said Colonel D.K. Badola, spokesman for the Indian army in Jammu.

Paharganj was one of two markets that were hit by blasts on October 29, days ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Another blast occurred on a bus.

Badola said Lone had been handed over to police in Jammu, winter capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.

A military intelligence source told AFP that Lone had said he was paid 23,000 rupees (500 dollars) by a commander of the pan-Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

"He was first paid 3,000 rupees (65 dollars) before the blast, then 20,000 rupees (435 dollars) after the blast," said the source.

A militant group calling itself the Islamic Revolutionary Group had claimed responsibility for the Delhi explosions.

New Delhi police have linked it to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is among a dozen or so rebel groups battling Indian troops in Kashmir, where a Muslim separatist insurgency has been raging since 1989.

The intelligence source said Lone arrived in Delhi on October 28 by bus, where he was told to await the arrival of two people at a local transport company the following day.

"Two persons came around 5:30 pm in an autorickshaw ... They gave him one bag (weighing) 15 kilograms (33 pounds). He planted the bag in the Paharganj area near Vivek Hotel."

Lone told the intelligence officials that he did not recognize the men who handed him the bag but they were speaking Urdu, the source said.

Lone was given blades and shaving material to change his identity before traveling back to Kashmir.

"He's around 22 years old, active in militancy since 2002 and he was working as a courier and overground worker," the intelligence source said.

Army spokesman Badola told AFP that Lone appears to have only recently joined Lashkar.

"He was in Hizbul Mujahedin since 2002," he said, referring to the main militant group operating in Indian Kashmir. "(Only) of late has he joined Lashkar-e-Taiba."

The rebel group, which wants Kashmir to become part of Pakistan, has the greatest number of indigenous Kashmiri in its ranks but its leader is based in Pakistan.

"He was handed over to Jammu and Kashmir police by us on November 7," the spokesman said.

Indian television news channels said Lone had subsequently been sent to New Delhi for interrogation.

The Hindu newspaper said that so far no link had been established between Lone and the other two bombings.

"Given that more than one cell seems to have executed the bombings, an enormous amount of investigative work remains," an unnamed official told The Hindu.

The detention and claimed confession however represents a major breakthrough for police in their investigation of the bombings, which left more than 200 people injured.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had indicated the possibility of Pakistani involvement in the blasts and called on Islamabad to do more to fight terrorism.

Pakistan rejected Singh's comments and asked him to produce evidence.

Police last week released a sketch of a man suspected of being behind one of the other blasts. It was prepared with the help of witnesses who said they saw him slipping off a New Delhi bus after leaving a bag with a device which exploded minutes later.

All passengers survived after the driver, Kuldeep Singh, threw the bomb out of the vehicle shortly before it exploded.