New Delhi: Police officers trawled slums and criminal hideouts in New Delhi on Sunday rounding up suspects, after serial bombings in the city a day earlier killed 22 people and injured nearly 130.
Police said they were pursuing several leads, including talking to an 11-year-old boy who said he had seen two men drop off a large plastic bag at one of the blast sites.
At hospitals, though, relatives of victims accused police of failing to protect them.
"Down with the police," they shouted, some with tears in their eyes. "We don't trust you any more". "Helpless?" read the banner headline of the Sunday Times newspaper, expressing growing frustration at the inability of authorities to prevent a string of bomb attacks in recent months.
Some women prayed at a small temple inside one of the hospitals. Others cried. Some rushed about frantically looking for their missing relatives. "He is my brother Ramesh, please help me trace him," said Sarabjit Singh, pointing to a photograph.
At least five bombs exploded in quick succession in crowded markets and streets in the heart of New Delhi on Saturday night.
A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen (IM) sent an e-mail to television stations shortly after the first explosion saying it was responsible. The group, believed to be an offshoot of the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India, has sent similar e-mails before or after several major attacks in India in recent months.
"Eye for an eye. The dust will never settle down," the Hindustan Times quoted the e-mail as saying.
"Our intense, accurate and successive attacks ... will continue to punish you even before your earlier wounds have healed," it said, referring to bomb attacks in Indian cities in May and July that together killed more than 120.
Throughout Saturday night, hundreds of people, mostly residents of the New Delhi neighbourhoods hit by bombs, were questioned before being allowed to go. "We have detained 10-12 people for further questioning," said Ranjan Bhagat of Delhi
Police, adding that no formal arrests had been made. Police said they were studying footage from close-circuit television cameras at two of the markets hit by bombs. "We need to see if there is anything in it," said deputy police commissioner, HG S Dhaliwal. "Hope we find something."
The National Counterterrorism Centre in Washington says 3,674 people had been killed in militant attacks in India between January 2004 and March 2007, a death toll second only to that in Iraq.
Last week, the chief cleric of Delhi's biggest mosque, Maulana Syed Ahmed Bukhari, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to complain that innocent Muslims were being arrested "in the name of terrorist activities". "It should be apparent by now, first, that we have only identified the tip of the Jihadi iceberg," former head of Research and Analysis Wing, B Raman wrote in the Hindustan Times. "The iceberg itself remains unexposed. Second, we have not yet been able to identify the command and control of the IM."
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