Seven detained for blasts on India-Pakistan train (Roundup)

Feb 22, 2007, 12:07 GMT

New Delhi - Indian police said Thursday they had detained seven people for questioning in connection with the bombings on a train from India to Pakistan, while injured Pakistanis as well as bodies of victims were flown back to their country.

Sixty-eight mainly Pakistani passengers were killed and several injured late Sunday after explosive devices gutted two coaches of the Samjhauta Express that left New Delhi for Lahore in Pakistan with more than 600 passengers on board.

Twelve bodies of Pakistani victims were taken by road and by air to Wagah on the border between the two countries and the port city of Karachi, Pakistan's Geo news channel reported.

Seven injured passengers admitted to Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital were flown home by a Pakistani Air Force plane, PTI news agency reported.

Hospital authorities said teams of doctors from both countries accompanied the patients, many of whom had severe burn injuries. One relative each would also travel with each patient.

Thirty-three of the 68 victims had been identified so far, 27 of them Pakistanis and six Indians, a spokesman for India's foreign Ministry said.

Several relatives of missing Pakistani passengers have reached India but identifying bodies has been difficult as some of them were charred beyond recognition.

The bodies were now being embalmed by teams of army doctors. Relatives had been asked to provide blood samples to help DNA testing to identify the victims, PTI reported quoting authorities at the Panipat Civil Hospital in Haryana state, 100 kilometers north of Delhi, where the bodies are kept.

The blasts occurred while the Samjhauta Express was passing through Haryana near Panipat town.

Meanwhile, teams of investigators fanned out to various towns on basis of intelligence reports and seven people had been detained - four from northern Rajasthan state, two from central Uttar Pradesh state and one from the old quarters of Delhi, NDTV television network and PTI reported.

Those detained in Rajasthan's Bikaner district included a married couple, Rajasthan's police chief AS Gill was quoted as saying by PTI.

He said one of the men resembled one of the sketches of two suspects released by the Haryana police of two men who had reportedly jumped off the train 15 minutes before the blast.

'Police teams from different states are coordinating investigations with central agencies,' senior Haryana police official RC Mishra said.

He said the police had some clues but he could not give further information till the investigations were over.

NDTV, however, quoted forensic experts involved in the investigations as saying that as many as four to six bombers may have been involved in the blasts.

Police have recovered two suitcases of explosives weighing 20 kgs each and there were at least two more on the carriage that caught fire, indicating that more than two bombers were involved, NDTV quoted the unnamed experts as saying.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, who is on a four-day visit to India, said in interviews to Indian television channels that he hoped New Delhi would share information on the blasts with Islamabad before the first meeting of their joint anti-terror panel scheduled for March 6 to make that meeting more 'meaningful.'

After scheduled talks in the Indian capital Wednesday, Kasuri and his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee condemned the blasts and vowed to continue with their ongoing dialogue to improve relations.

Both countries see the terrorist attack as an attempt to derail their peace process.

The nuclear-capable South Asian neighbours have fought three wars since their independence in 1947, two of them over the disputed Kashmir region.