India PM sees bomb sites as calls grow to boost security

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister ManmohanSingh viewed on Monday damage wreaked by bombings that killed45 people in a communally sensitive city, as calls grew for hisgovernment to beef up its intelligence apparatus.

The 16 bombings in western Ahmedabad came a day afterblasts in the IT hub of Bangalore in which one woman died,sparking criticism that authorities were lax in probingmilitant groups that were using increasingly brazen tactics.

Under heavy guard, the prime minister and Sonia Gandhi, thepowerful head of the ruling Congress party, drove to hospitalgrounds to look at buildings damaged in one of the coordinatedexplosions that hit the city on Saturday.

A group called the "Indian Mujahideen" said it carried outthe Ahmedabad attack, writing in an e-mail sent five minutesbefore the first blast that it was in revenge for a 2002massacre in Gujarat of around 2,500 people, mainly Muslims, byHindu mobs.

"Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel theterror of Death!", the e-mail, seen by Reuters, said.

It warned the governments of several states to stopharassing, imprisoning and torturing Muslims and told mediaoutlets to stop their "propaganda war" against Muslims.

It also warned Mukesh Ambani, chairman of RelianceIndustries and one of the world's richest men, to think twicebefore building a luxury 27-storey home on land in Mumbaipreviously owned by a Muslim charity.

Two separate series of bombings ripped through Ahmedabadwithin 90 minutes. The first series went off near busy markets.A second wave of bombs went off around a hospital, where atleast six people died. All were detonated with timers.

Many of the bombs were packed into metal tiffin boxes, usedto carry food, and stuffed with ball-bearings. Some were lefton bicycles and one was reportedly a car bomb. Police believedozens of militants could have been involved in the coordinatedattack.

The India Mujahideen said it carried out bombings thatkilled 63 people in the western city of Jaipur in May.

As was the case with Jaipur, India has often accusedmilitant groups from Pakistan and Bangladesh of helping localmilitants to carry out a wave of bombings in recent years, withtargets ranging from mosques to Hindu temples.

But few people are ever brought to trial.

"Typically, the police round up a few Muslim boys as beingterrorists and the courts let them off, so poor is theinvestigation or the basis of the initial arrests," The AsianAge said in its editorial on Monday.

India's cities were on alert on Monday, with extra policestationed at many malls, train stations and temples.

Gujarat police said they were interrogating a member of thebanned Students' Islamic Movement of India in connection withthe Ahmedabad attacks. He is wanted on charges relating to the2002 violence in Gujarat and was caught in a police sweep onSunday.

Police also traced the India Mujahideen e-mail to acomputer belonging to an American, living in a Mumbai suburb,who has been questioned. Local media said his computer may havebeen hacked.

HINDU NATIONALISTS TARGETED?

Ahmedabad is the main city in the communally sensitive andrelatively wealthy western state of Gujarat. The state's ChiefMinister Narendra Modi is one of India's most controversialpoliticians, accused of turning a blind eye to the 2002 riots.

Ahmedabad and Bangalore are both in states ruled by theHindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and are among thecountry's fastest-growing.

Underscoring worries that another attack could be in thepipeline, two more unexploded bombs were found in cars in thecity of Surat on Sunday, one of the world's biggestdiamond-polishing centres, also located in Gujarat.

There have been calls to reinstate an anti-terrorism lawthat the government scrapped after it came to power in 2004.The law was criticised for giving police too many powers todetain people without charge and allowing the abuse ofgovernment opponents.

Police officers in many states said they rarely receivedwarnings from the country's intelligence services.

"It is difficult in any investigation without inputs, asyou start from scratch as you put together clues and humanintelligence," said Pankaj Kumar Singh, a top police officerprobing the Jaipur bombings said.

There are worries that more attacks could start to dentbusiness confidence, although years of attacks have done littleto dampen the booming economy.

The attacks had little impact on the stock market onMonday, although the stock exchange in Mumbai was under heavyguard after an e-mail threat.

(Additional reporting by Bappa Majumdar and KrittivasMukherjee in New Delhi; Writing by Alistair Scrutton; Editingby Simon Denyer and Paul Tait)