Officials said earlier yesterday that the prime suspect in Tuesday's bombings is Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group that operates in Kashmir, the Himalayan region at the centre of the long-running India-Pakistan conflict.

The news service reported that the man said, "Today a unit of al-Qaida has been established in Jammu and Kashmir which shall henceforth be called al-Qaida Jammu and Kashmir."

"Whosoever has carried out the attacks in Bombay we express our gratitude and happiness," the man reportedly said, and also appealed to Indian Muslims to take up the struggle against the Indian government.