India, Pakistan stick to plans for talks after train attack

NEW DELHI -- Indian and Pakistani officials said peace talks between their countries would open in Delhi today as planned, reaffirming their determination not to allow the train bombing that killed at least 68 people Sunday night to upset sensitive negotiations between the longtime rivals.

Pakistan's foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, arrived in the Indian capital yesterday for the talks but first stopped to visit the wounded at a New Delhi hospital.

"Incidents like these that are very heart-rending and which affect both countries and both peoples can only add to the urgency of the need for cooperation," he told reporters. His words echoed those of his Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukherjee who had met wounded passengers at the same New Delhi hospital earlier in the afternoon. "We must show our determination in the peace process which we have begun," Mukherjee said after touring the hospital.

The investigations continued into the circumstances behind the twin blasts that caused a fire to sweep through two cars of the train traveling from India to Pakistan. Meanwhile, the police released sketches of the faces of two suspects, who they said had jumped from the moving train a few minutes before the bombs exploded.

At a televised news conference, Inspector General Sharad Kumar said the two men had told guards on the train that they had boarded the wrong train and wanted to get off.

"The two suspects had a heated argument with the personnel of Railway Protection Force for about 20 minutes in the train and they alighted from it when it slowed down near Diwana station," Kumar said, referring to the station about 80 kilometers, or 50 miles, north of Delhi, close to where the explosions went off.

Kumar said the attack was thought to be "the handiwork of a militant outfit, but we don't know which group is involved." No one had claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Two suitcases filled with crude unexploded devices were found in an undamaged car, he said, adding that a drunken Pakistani passenger traveling in that car, who gave his name as Usman Muhammad, was questioned earlier yesterday .

Efforts were being made to identify some of the victims whose bodies had been collected in a makeshift morgue in the village of Panipat, near the site of the blast, but progress was slow, and Indian television news said only 11 people had been positively identified by yesterday afternoon.

As Rana Shaukatali, a Pakistani shopkeeper from Faisalabad, lay at Safdarjung Hospital recovering from severe burns, his nephew, Khalid Khan, 28, returned from the gruesome task of inspecting corpses. Shaukatali lost five children in the train blast. His nephew could find none of them in the heap of corpses that had been burned beyond recognition.

"No clothes, no other articles, no way that you can identify those bodies," he said.

Officials said that DNA testing of the unclaimed bodies would begin in the next few days.

Although the majority of passengers on the train were thought to be Pakistani, it was still unclear how many of the dead were Indian and how many were from Pakistan.

Given India's recent history of violent attacks on trains, there was widespread concern in the Indian media yesterday over the absence of stringent security measures on the route that links India and Pakistan.