tattoo empek empek

"The term security no longer denotes safety for us," he added from the city's GT Hospital where his son was fighting for his life in the intensive care unit.

The continuing monsoon downpour also threatened to wash away critical forensic evidence at the bomb sites as teams of experts attempted to gather material at the affected areas.

After the serial bombings in 1993 that killed 260 people at Mumbai's stock exchange and other commercial areas, the port city was rocked by serial explosions in 2003. Three years later 180 people died after Islamist militants simultaneously targeted packed commuter trains with IEDs packed into lunch boxes and cooking utensils.

This was followed in November 2008 by the strike by 10 gunmen on Mumbai's main train terminus, two luxury hotels, a Jewish centre and cafés frequented by tourists that were blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) militant group.

Locals held the government responsible for the obvious intelligence breakdown that left the city vulnerable yet again, but federal home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram disagreed.

"There was no intelligence regarding a militant attack in Mumbai. That is not a failure of the intelligence agencies," Mr Chidambaram declared at a news conference in Mumbai.

"We know that the perpetrators have attacked and have worked in a very, very clandestine manner," he said, curiously adding that maybe they were a "very small group" that "did not communicate with each other".

Frantic investigators were now turning to CCTV footage obtained from one of the crowded locations in central Mumbai's Zaveri or Jewelers Bazaar to try and identify the perpetrators.

But shopkeepers from the Bazaar, that suffered its third bombing since 1993 doubted whether the CCTV's even worked claiming that the police had installed them a year ago but paid little heed to either their maintenance or functioning.

"They (CCTV's) were installed with much fanfare, but it's quite likely that they became non-operative months ago," Nipun Pandiya, a wholesale dealer in precious stones, said.

Police officials were unavailable for comment.

Federal home ministry sources, meanwhile, said Mumbai police were interrogating members of the Indian Mujahideen, the home-grown militant group, who were arrested in Mumbai earlier this week in connection with bomb blasts in 2008 in neighbouring western Gujarat state, but provided no details.

This group is known to have operational links with the LeT in Pakistan and is closely involved in executing terrorist attacks on Indian-administered Kashmir and elsewhere in the country, including Mumbai's commuter train bombings in 2006.

But India is wary of even hinting at Pakistan's involvement in the latest bombings as it come weeks after bilateral peace talks resumed following a three-year hiatus after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.

It would also impinge on talks the Indian and Pakistan foreign ministers are scheduled to hold in Delhi later this month to take the peace initiative forward to ease tension between the antagonistic nuclear-armed neighbours.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due in India for diplomatic, political and strategic discussions next week and any suggestion attributing blame for the Mumbai bombings to Pakistan-based groups could further complicate Pakistan's fraught ties with Washington.