NEW DELHI, India (CNN) — The death toll in a string of explosions that ripped through busy marketplaces in New Delhi has risen to 20, police said Sunday.
The number of people wounded in the Saturday blasts also went up to 98, said New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat.
Bhagat said police have not made any arrests in the attack, for which the Muslim militant group Indian Mujahedeen took responsibility.
Five minutes before the first blast, CNN-IBN — CNN’s sister network in India — received an E-mail from the group warning of an impending strike.
At least five explosions ripped through the Karol Bagh market, Kailash Market and Connaught Place — a popular tourist destination, Bhagat said. Two other bombs found near a movie theater and near central park in the Connaught Place area were defused, he said.
An eyewitness told CNN that one of the bombs at Connaught Place was hidden near a public trash can at the market. He said the force of the blast blew a small vehicle from one side of the street to the other.
“It was terrifying,” he said, adding that the small automobile rickshaw had blood all over it.
Bhagat refused comment about who might have carried out the attack.
India’s Home Minister Shri Shivraj Patil blamed the attack on “anti-national elements” who he said “have been trying to disturb peace and create panic among the people in various parts of the country.”
“The government will continue to deal firmly with such elements,” Patel said in a written statement. “I am confident that security agencies will soon be able to get to the bottom of these incidents and the culprits will be brought to book.”
Indian Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for 17 blasts that struck the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on July 26, killing 49 and wounding more than 100 others. The blasts struck within about an hour of each other within a six-mile (10 km) radius.
Indian Mujahedeen also claimed responsibility in May for near-simultaneous bomb attacks that killed 63 people in the northwest city of Jaipur. In the Jaipur claim, the group declared “open war” against India in retaliation for what it said were 60 years of Muslim persecution and the country’s support of United States policies
