India ? Investigators believe one of Kashmir’s most notorious Islamic militant groups planted bombs that killed 20 people at a temple and train station in Hinduism’s holiest city, police said Friday.

A senior police official also said a Kashmiri militant killed by officers in northern India hours after Tuesday’s bombings was suspected of masterminding the attack in Varanasi, a city famed for its shrines on the banks of the Ganges River.

The dead man – identified only as Salim – ran the operations of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Kashmir’s best-known militant group, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where Varanasi is located, said Yashpal Singh, the state’s top officer.

He added that investigators were trying to find out the places Salim had been and with whom he was in contact.

A previously unknown Kashmiri group has taken credit for the bombings. But Singh said there were “strong indications” the attack was the work of Lashkar, which is fighting to wrest predominantly Muslim territory of Kashmir from largely Hindu India.