WEDNESDAY'S (July 13) explosions in India's financial capital Mumbai ticked a wearily familiar list of boxes in a country which is no stranger to bombings that go unclaimed and lack any transparent motive.
Briefing reporters on Thursday (July 14) about the investigation, Home Minister P. Chidambaram cast the net of suspicion as wide as it would go.
"All groups hostile to India are on the radar. We are not ruling out anything, we are not ruling in anything, we are looking at everyone," he said.
"Whoever perpetrated the attack has worked in a very callous manner. Maybe it's a very small group working in a clandestine manner," he added.
Chidambaram's remarks were partly aimed at pre-empting the knee-jerk accusations of Pakistani complicity that invariably surface after any act of terror in India.
New Delhi has long accused its arch-rival and neighbour of aiding and abetting the militant groups who have carried out attacks on Indian soil, including the traumatic 2008 assault on Mumbai by Islamist gunmen that claimed 166 lives.
But his comments also highlighted the information vacuum which all too often surrounds seemingly arbitrary incidents.
