Officially, no one knows yet, but unofficially, the jury appears to have reached a verdict, reports Jonathan Steele in the Guardian.

Most speculation blames the Pakistani-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba which is fighting to end Indian rule in Kashmir, but the Indian government has not officially named it. A Lashkar spokesman, Abdullah Ghaznavi, said his group was not involved. “These killings are inhuman,” he said. “Our jihad is only against the Indian troops in Kashmir. Islam does not allow the killing of innocent people.”

Ajai Sahni, director of the Institute for Conflict Management, described the denial as “absolute nonsense”. “They always deny incidents in which large numbers of civilians die. They regularly hit army and police targets in Jammu and Kashmir, but they don’t have the capacity to do that in India, so they go after civilians,” he told the Guardian by phone from Delhi.

The group was linked, he said, to the Students Islamic Movement of India, which has roots in Maharashtra state and recruits there. “Recent arrests and intelligence reports of the interrogations have shown the Pakistani state is involved in backing these groups. The cumulative evidence is overwhelming.”

Mr Sahni blamed Pakistan’s intelligence establishment, the Inter-services Intelligence, for arming and equipping Lashkar-e-Taiba which operates openly in Pakistan where its leader gives regular interviews.

In its report the Independent, London, suggests that preliminary investigations center around both Lashkar-e-Tayeba and Dawood Ibrahim’s D Company.

There are many groups which could have been responsible for yesterday’s atrocity. India is the target for one of the widest range of militant groups in the world, from Maoist guerrillas to tribal separatists. But most do not have the capability to mount such an attack. There were unconfirmed reports that Indian intelligence was focusing on Lashkar-e Toiba as the prime suspect for the attacks. Lashkar’s main cause is to “liberate” Kashmir from Indian rule.It used to have close links to Pakistan’s ISI intelligence but Islamabad says links have been severed.

There were also reports that Indian intelligence was investigating the possible involvement of the “D Company” mafia group, which is believed to have been behind the bombings in 1993. Run by the multimillionaire Dawood Ibrahim, the group was entirely non-political until 1993. But in the wake of the religious violence that followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque in 1992, Mr Ibrahim, a Muslim, is believed to have decided to get involved.

Terrorism expert B Raman has also pointed to a possible Dawood connection, suggesting that his group could have been the executors of a project hatched by al Qaeda.

While there is no reason to believe that the terrorist strikes of July 11 might have been carried out by the Arab members of Al Qaeda, the inspiration and planning are likely to have come from the group.

The execution could have been through Al Qaeda’s surrogates — Lashkar-e-Tayiba, other Pakistani members of the Al Qaeda-led International Islamic Front, members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India or the followers of Dawood Ibrahim.

Pakistani media had reported last month that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence had re-located Dawood in the tribal areas near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Bin Laden and his second in line of command Ayman al-Zawahiri operate from the same area.

Jonathan Steele in the Guardian traces the eclipse and re-emergence of LeT.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (Soldiers of the Pure) operated freely in Pakistan until shortly after September 11 2001. It recruited and raised funds openly, putting collection boxes in shops.

After George Bush pressed his Pakistani counterpart, Pervez Musharraf, to ban the group in January 2002, it split. One faction renamed itself Jama’at ud Dawa, while others worked more loosely; so the name, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is as vague an umbrella for militants focused on the Kashmir issue as al-Qaida is for anti-American jihadis, according to Dr Price.

Until it was banned, Lashkar-e-Taiba took responsibility for attacks made on Indian military targets, including one on a barracks at the Red Fort in Delhi in which three people died.

The group denied killing civilians, claiming such an act went against its religious belief. Indian police accused the group of explosions in Mumbai in August 2003 which killed 55 people, and of a raid on the Indian parliament in 2001 that almost brought India and Pakistan to war. The group was blamed for attacks in October in Delhi which killed more than 60 people, and for explosions in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi this year which killed at least 15 people.

The earthquake in northern Pakistan and parts of Kashmir in October gave the group a new lease of life. Pakistan allowed it to collect funds openly again, officially for reconstruction work. Many of its offices reopened.