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JAIPUR, India : A previously-unknown Islamic militant group has claimed responsibility for a string of blasts that killed 63 people in the Indian tourist city of Jaipur, top officials told AFP on Thursday.
Gulab Chand Kataria, home minister of the northern state of Rajasthan of which Jaipur is the capital, said the police were investigating the claim, which he added was e-mailed to several media organisations.
"They (the group) sent a video saying 'you support America and Britain and we will put pressure on them and on you,'" Kataria told AFP.
"The police have seen it. It also has a few seconds of the bicycle (used in the attacks)," the home minister said in Jaipur.
He said the group that sent the mail identified itself as "Indian Mujahedeen" -- a previously unknown group which claims to be fighting Indian rule.
The e-mailed video clips showed a bicycle which it said was packed with explosives and set off at one of the eight blast locations in Jaipur.
Jaipur city police chief Pankaj Singh said the mail bore the sender's name as "Indian Mujahedeen."
"It's a post-dated e-mail and it was sent after the attacks claiming 'we did it' and we are trying to verify whether it is the source or a false claim," police inspector-general Singh told AFP.
Some 200 people were also injured in the bombings, which police said were the first "terror" attack in the Rajasthan state capital.
Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje said Wednesday that explosives and ammonium nitrate mixed with steel balls were wired to timing devices and detonated at the eight blast sites.
The string of bombs which went off Tuesday night at crowded markets in Jaipur were believed to have been planted on bicycles, police say.
Detectives released a sketch on Wednesday night of a suspect that they wanted to interview, and said more than 200 people had been rounded up for questioning.
Two people have also been arrested, chief minister Raje had said earlier.
India's junior home minister Shriprakash Jaiswal told reporters "the people responsible for these attacks have foreign connections," without naming Pakistan.
Pakistan-based Islamic militants fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir are usually blamed for such attacks which have plagued major Indian cities for years.
The blasts went off over a span of just 12 minutes and were close to several Hindu temples as well as the packed markets in the city, 260 kilometres (160 miles) west of the Indian capital.
Minister Kataria told AFP on Wednesday around a dozen people had been detained. "We are trying our best to unravel the conspiracy behind this dastardly attack," he said.
Among those detained in the city, which was under a day-time curfew, were one of the wounded and a rickshaw puller, a police official said.
Rajasthan -- with its intricate palaces and forts -- was in mourning this week, unable to provide its usual warm welcome to visitors after a series of bomb blasts killed 63 people.
No tourists were among the casualties in Jaipur, the historic state capital of Rajasthan, popularly known as the 'pink city' because of the ochre-pink hue of its hill top forts, Hindu maharajah's palaces and crenellated city walls.
- AFP/ir
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