India On Red Alert

FOR A FEW TENSE DAYS, IT SEEMED AS IF THE "Black Friday" bombings that had rocked Bombay on March 12 and killed 317 would proliferate. A U.S. intelligence report warned that New Delhi could be the next target. Then, just after midnight last Wednesday, a blast shook the center of Calcutta. Two 100- year-old tenement buildings collapsed into rubble. This time 86 people died. And again, on Friday, an explosion at a Calcutta train station killed four. Police, however, discounted a link with Bombay's synchronized explosions of 13 high-tech bombs, saying the first Calcutta tragedy was caused by the accidental detonation of a stockpile of explosives being hoarded for some future attack by a local gang running the city's "Satta" betting rackets.

Indian leaders claim the Bombay explosions were masterminded by foreign forces, possibly Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence. Piecing together a car bomb that exploded in the basement garage of the Air India skyscraper, Bombay police traced the ownership of vehicles used in the attacks to one of the city's main Muslim underworld families, the Memons. The six Memon brothers fled to Dubai shortly before the explosions, but police managed to arrest two hirelings who were allegedly paid $167 to plant some of the bombs.