India-Pakistan talks under threat after bomb kills nine

The attack is the first by suspected Islamic militants since the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai when ten Lashkar e Taiba (LeT) fighters killed 166 in a machine gun rampage.

Talks between India and Pakistan have been frozen since then, but were due to resume in New Delhi next week following pressure from the United States.

American defence secretary Robert Gates recently said the poor relationship between the two countries was an obstacle to finding a solution in Afghanistan.

India's prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh will decide on whether to go ahead with the talks after he receives the findings of a preliminary investigation into the Pune attack, in which two foreigners, a 37 year old Italian woman and a 26 year old Iranian man, were among those killed.

Initial suspicion focused on the Pakistan-based LeT after India's home minister P Chidambaram yesterday said David Headley, a Pakistan-born suspected LeT agent arrested in Chicago last year, had surveyed Pune as part of a series of reconnaissance missions for terrorist targets. Security experts said the crude nature of the device suggested a local terrorist group, the Indian Mujahideen, could be behind the attack.

Despite warnings to state police and intelligence agencies, terrorists successfully detonated an improvised explosive device contained in a holdall left in a German Bakery popular with foreigners and visitors to the nearby Osho Ashram. The bakery is opposite the Chabad House centre for Jewish travellers, one of the groups targeted in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Eyewitnesses described scenes of carnage and destruction outside the bakery, where limbs were strewn over the blast site. The explosion wrecked the bakery building and fired blocks of concrete and steel into the road outside.