Indian PM Vows To Defeat Terrorism

Investigators Eye Kashmiri Militants As Death Toll Rises To 200

(CBS/AP) 
"It is difficult to say definitely at this stage, but Lashkar-e-Tayyaba can be involved going by the style of attack," said P.S. Pasricha, the director general of police for Maharashtra state.

Lashkar has in the past employed near-simultaneous explosions to attack Indian cities.

But other Indian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was just getting under way, cautioned that it was too early to accuse a specific group.

Later Wednesday, suspected Islamic militants wounded five Indian tourists in a grenade attack in a small resort town in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said. That came after eight people were killed Tuesday in a series of grenade attacks in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir's main city.

With the annual monsoon leaving the Indian port city of 16 million overcast and damp Wednesday, police picked through the mangled train cars, placing evidence in blue plastic bags and shooing away curious onlookers.

"We are just trying to establish what kind of explosives were used and where exactly the bombs were placed but it appears they were kept in the luggage racks," said police inspector Yeshwant Patil, sifting through a wrecked train car.

Governments around the world tightened security after the blasts. Commuter transit systems have been tempting targets for terrorists in recent years, with bombers killing 191 in Madrid in 2004 and 52 in London last year.

Bombay also suffered blasts in 1993 that included the Bombay Stock Exchange, killing more than 250 people.

Pasricha said that in recent months authorities had become aware Bombay could be targeted.

"We had an idea since some months that Bombay was a target," he told reporters. "Since it is the financial capital, there are many vulnerable areas in the city."

He described the bombings in India's financial hub as an attempt to undermine India's future.

"The country is on the path to progress," Pasricha said. He said the attackers wanted to stoke fear and "stop investments."

"I think this is much more likely to be a geographically confined conflict than something that really threatens the West," CBS News terrorism analyst Christopher Whitcomb, a former FBI agent, said.

But analysts said the blasts were unlikely to hurt investor confidence, and the stock market rose a surprising 3 percent Wednesday, boosted by strong earnings results from Infosys Technologies, a major software company.

Commuters, meanwhile, returned to the trains, though there was less of a crush than normal on the network, which serves some 6 million people a day, making it one of the world's most crowded rail systems. People are "shellshocked" and quieter, Gupta says.

"Our trust in Bombay has been shattered, we had always thought trains were safe, but what can we do, in this city trains are the lifeline," said Brijesh Ojha, 35, who boarded a train at Bandra station, where the first blast occurred.

"They can't scare us this way," he said.