Mumbai, Sep 24 (IANS) The Mumbai Police chief has claimed that the group which carried out the July 13 triple blasts has been identified. However, he refused to divulge its name.

"The police are now aware of the group which was behind the July 13 blasts. However, there are some few loose ends which need to be tied up before revealing its name," Maharashtra Director-General of Police (DGP) Ajit Parasnis said in Kolhapur Friday.

He was speaking at a function where he was felicitated before his retirement this month-end.

Parasnis added that investigation in the 13/7 case has been delayed as it was complicated and time-consuming.

Three blasts, at close intervals, shook the country' diamond and gold hubs - Opera House and Zaveri Bazar - and a busy commercial area of Dadar west in Mumbai, killing at least 27 people and leaving around 125 injured.

The investigation is being conducted by teams of the Mumbai Police, Maharashtra's Criminal Investigation Department (CID), National Investigation Agency (NIA) and others, with support from the local security agencies in several states.

Though the investigations are spanning Mumbai, other parts of Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, West Bengal, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, police have so far only succeeded in making the sketch of a suspect, based on an eyewitness account.

Confounding the investigators is the fact that, so far, no group has claimed responsibility for the blasts.

Since the Mumbai serial blasts of March 12, 1993, there have been a total of 16 major terror incidents in the city and elsewhere in Maharashtra.

Barring 13/7, all have been solved, including the Pune German Bakery blast of February 2010, which sleuths cracked after a few months.