Coordinator of Delhi blasts detained

"He was arrested (in Kashmir) on November 10," police commissioner K.K. Paul told a press conference in New Delhi, naming the key suspect as "Tariq".

He said the hunt was on for four accomplices identified as members of the hardline rebel group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is among a dozen guerrilla organisations battling Indian rule in Kashmir since 1989.

Besides the Lashkar rebels, a number of foreign militants were also involved in the blasts, Paul said.

The Delhi police chief said Tariq had come to the Indian capital in the first week of October to plot the bombings, but was not present when the attacks were carried out by a team of militants on October 29.

Tariq was a key financier for Lashkar though he worked in Indian Kashmir as a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company, Paul said.

"The three blasts were carried out by at least four people. The identity of the people has more or less been confirmed and we are trying to track them down," he added.

Paul identified two of them as Lashkar militants Abu Alqama and Abu Hussain Khan.

The blasts in two markets and a bus in New Delhi, which came before the Hindu festival of Diwali, also wounded 210 people.

Paul said investigators learned that Tariq received 500,000 rupees (11,500 dollars) from a person based in the Middle East days before the blast.

"The investigations are at an important juncture and it may not be right to disclose everything right now," he said in response to queries by reporters.

"We are piecing the evidence together and we are sure to come out with more information soon."

Paul said police found that Tariq made a call to a news agency office in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, to claim that Lashkar had not carried out the bombings.