NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India acknowledged the Mumbai attacks had uncovered security lapses but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday evidence showed the strike originated on a neighbor's soil, a clear reference to Pakistan.

The ruling Congress party-led coalition is under renewed criticism from the opposition that it is weak on security after the three-day rampage by 10 Islamist gunmen in India's financial capital last week capped a series of bomb blasts this year.

"I would be less than truthful if I said there were no lapses," new Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told reporters in Mumbai. "These are being looked into. We will address the causes that led to the lapses."

Chidambaram took the post on Sunday after his predecessor quit amid public fury at government failure to prevent the attacks. Elections are due by May and analysts say Singh must demonstrate decisive action to counter criticism over security.

"We have impressed upon all world leaders who called me that the people of India feel a sense of hurt and anger as never before," Singh said at a media conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who was on a scheduled trip to New Delhi.

"We expect the world community to come to the same conclusion, that the territory of a neighboring country has been used for this crime," he said.

Pakistan has condemned the assault, denied state involvement and vowed to help the Indian probe. But it wants proof first.

Mumbai police have said the gunmen were controlled by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group blamed for earlier attacks in India.

LeT is on U.S. and Indian terrorist lists and Indian police say two of its operations leaders, who were designated terrorists by Washington in May, coordinated the Mumbai rampage.

INDIAN ACCOMPLICE?

There was evidence of some Indian complicity in the attacks, police in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh said on Friday.

In February, police arrested an LeT-linked Indian named Faim Ansari after an attack on a police station. He was carrying maps of Mumbai, Special Task Force chief Brij Lal said.

"Ansari, who was later handed over to the Maharashtra police, carried some road maps highlighting several important landmarks of south Mumbai that became the target of last week's terrorist attack," he said.

Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra state, but Mumbai Joint Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria told a media conference on Friday Ansari was in jail in Uttar Pradesh.

Underscoring the collective jitters after the attacks, gunshot-like sounds heard at New Delhi's international airport early on Friday sparked a scare. Police said no one was hurt and normal operations resumed after a search.

The violence in Mumbai killed at least 171 people. India has said nine militants were killed and one captured alive. U.S. analysts said as many as 23 gunmen could have been involved.

"If there were others that had a role in the whole operation, I would not be able to say now," Chidambaram said.

Indian newspapers reported the Pakistan military's spy agency ISI helped train the gunmen.

"There is ample evidence to show the source of the attacks were clearly linked to organizations which have in the past been identified as behind terrorist attacks in India," Chidambaram said when asked if ISI was involved. He did not name ISI.

India has blamed ISI for using militant groups like LeT in earlier attacks and as proxies in the latter years of their 60-year conflict over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

The Mumbai rampage has threatened a four-year-old peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals, put in place after a 2001 attack on parliament blamed on LeT nearly set off a war.

"Neither the Pakistani nation nor our Indian brothers want war. God willing, that won't happen," acting Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters.

Analysts say an escalation in tension would force Pakistan to move troops to its border with India, and threaten a U.S-led operation against al Qaeda and other militants on its western frontier with Afghanistan.

ISI chief Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha briefed Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on security on Friday, Gilani's office said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in both New Delhi and Islamabad this week, urging cooperation against terrorism between the old enemies, who have fought three wars since independence in 1947.

(Additional reporting by New Delhi, Mumbai and Islamabad bureaux and Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow; Editing by Paul Tait)