India on alert after Mumbai massacre

India is on high alert today after intelligence officers admitted they did not know who was responsible for a triple bombing that killed 18 people and wounded more than 130 in Mumbai.

The bombings rocked three separate neighbourhoods within minutes of each other during the evening rush hour, the worst terror strike in India since the siege of Mumbai that killed 166 people in 2008.

Home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said Indian intelligence had received no warning before yesterday's blasts. He said: "Whoever has perpetrated this attack has worked in a very, very clandestine manner." He said police were looking into "every possible hostile group" in their search for the culprits.

Angry citizens have lambasted the government for failing to stop the attack despite massive security measures taken in recent years. Indian officials have previously accused Pakistan's powerful spy agency of helping co-ordinate and fund earlier attacks. Peace talks between the countries were suspended after the three-day Mumbai attack and resumed only recently.

Asked whether the blasts might have been aimed at derailing a new round of peace talks, Mr Chidambaram said: "We are ruling out no hypothesis."

He added: "We live in the most troubled neighbourhood in the world. Pakistan-Afghanistan is the epicentre of terror - every part of India is vulnerable."

One bomb in the Dadar area in central Mumbai was placed on a bus shelter, in the Opera House business district in southern Mumbai the device was placed on the road and in the Jhaveri Bazaar market a motorcycle was loaded with explosives. The bombs were made of ammonium nitrate and were not triggered remotely.