India detains five in Held Kashmir over Delhi blast

SRINAGAR: Indian police detained five people for questioning on Thursday, including the owner of an Internet cafe, over an email allegedly claiming responsibility for a bombing that killed 12 people in New Delhi, police sources in Kashmir and local media said.
The owner, his brother and an employee of the Global Cyber Cafe in Kishtwar, a city in the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, were taken in for questioning over an email allegedly linked to a powerful bomb that exploded at the entrance of the High Court on Wednesday.
The authorities are probing the authenticity of an email claiming to be from the militant group Harkatul Jihad Islami (HUJI) and sent from the Internet cafe. Local media reported two more people were held in the insurgency-riddled Kashmir region but it was not clear whether they were also linked to the internet cafe. The militant group, affiliated with al Qaeda, and largely based in Pakistan but also with bases in Bangladesh, has claimed responsibility for attacks in India, but not in recent years.
Media outlets said a separate email purportedly from the Indian Mujahideen, a home-grown radical group said to have support from Pakistan-based militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, had also claimed responsibility for the briefcase bomb attack.
The email threatened to blow up a shopping mall next Tuesday. A top home ministry official told reporters that authorities had been informed of the email and were investigating its authenticity.
"This input is being provided to the investigating agencies and they will go into the correctness and authenticity of this," said UK Bansal, in charge of internal security at the ministry.
New Delhi and Islamabad are just rebuilding ties after peace talks were broken off following the attacks on Mumbai in 2008 when Pakistani militants rampaged through the city, leaving 166 dead. Any possible links between Wednesday's blast and Pakistan could burden the fragile process.
The government has been sharply criticised for failing to put in place sufficient security measures at such a high-profile location as the High Court of the Indian capital, especially as the blast came only days before the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conceded on Wednesday militants were exploiting weaknesses in India's security apparatus.
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