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July 21, 2006

India: Three Suspected Islamists Arrested For Mumbai Blasts

Agence France Presse via Baku Today reports that three men were arrested overnight in India, in connection with the recent train attacks. The attacks happened on July 11 in Mumbai, when 182 people were killed in seven explosions on passenger trains carrying commuters home from work. More than 800 were wounded in the blasts.

Additional commissioner Jayjit Singh, who heads the anti-terror squad, said that one man was arrested on the outskirts of Mumbai and two more were picked up in the state of Bihar, in the east of the country. Singh said: "We have arrested people. They are part of the larger conspiracy. Their role in the blasts is being examined."

Television reports state that the three will appear in court today.

There have been criticisms of the Indian authorities for the slow pace of the inquiry. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, raised the issue of British businessmen funding Islamist groups in India at the G8 summit in Moscow, stated the Times on Monday, 17 July. Prime Minister SIngh reminded Britain's Tony Blair that the Indian government had handed over a dossier of 14 people living in Britain who were funding Islamist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group widely thought to have been responsible for the Mumbai blasts.

The British businessmen are said to have raised 8 million pounds ($14.85 million) for Islamist groups, but the Indian authorities claim Britain has done nothing with the information it has been given.

Relations between India and Pakistan have deteriorated since the Mumbai attacks, and the peace deals which were being made between the two countries have been put on ice. On Thursday 13, two days after the blasts, Manmohan SIngh said: "“Pakistan in 2004 had solemnly given an assurance that Pakistani territory will not be used to promote, encourage, train and abet terrorist elements directed against India. That assurance has to be fulfilled before the peace process or other processes can make progress"

Yesterday, Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan President stated that his government would be working to counter extremism within Pakistan and along its borders. He also said that he would not tolerate Taliban influence in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas, which were "negatively impacting" his country.

Musharraf said: "I want to tell the people of Mumbai that we are extremely saddened by the loss of lives and I condole with the bereaved families. I want to assure them that Pakistan and its people are with you in this moment of grief and in fighting terrorism."

"Terrorists want to stop the peace process and the normalisation process and I am sure the Indian government would not like them to win."

On Tuesday, a week after the blasts, citizens of Mumbai held a two minute silence to remember the dead and injured.

There have been other arrests in connection with the bombing, but these have so far not borne fruit.

A group calling itself Lashkar-e-Qahhar (Lashkar-e-Qahad or "Army of Fury") emailed a message to a local television station in Mumbai on Wednesday, which claimed that it had carried out the attacks. This group had earlier claimed responsibility for the attacks on Varanasi on March 7, but that claim was later proved false, when on April 5 an Indian Muslim cleric from the Bangladeshi terror group Harkatul Jihad-al Islami confessed to involvement, and claiming three Bangladeshis had carried out the Varanasi attacks.

The Lashkar-e-Qahhar message claimed that 16 of its activists had taken part in the blasts, and that one of these had been killed. Associated Press via Kuwait Times said that Lashkar-e-Qahhar may be a front organisation for Lashkar-e-Taiba, who are still regarded as the prime suspects for the Mumbai attacks.

In the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, more than 350 people were detained in the city on 13 July. The anti-terror unit released photographs that night of two key suspects, Sayyad Zabiuddin and Zulfeqar Fayaz. Few other details of these suspects was given out.

A senior figure in Lashkar-e-Taiba, Mushir Siddiqui, is reported to have told his interogators that there were ten sleeper cells in Mumbai, waiting for the instructions which would make them active.

IRNA reported on Wednesday that: "An anti-terrorism squad of the Mumbai police was interrogating 11 Muslim men in the adjoining state of Tripura Tuesday for any links with the serial bombings last week.

"It is up to the Mumbai police to take the next course of action against the Muslim youths. We will only share whatever evidence we got after interrogating the youths," Tripura police official Arindam Nath said by telephone.

The 11 men are from India's Maharasthra state and claim to be part of a Muslim religious group involved in spreading Islam among its followers.

Police in Tripura have detained 39 Muslim men over the past five days from different places.

"No arrests were made so far but we are keeping them under surveillance as all these people were found close to the Bangladesh border, which is a hub of religious fundamentalist groups," another senior Tripura police official who did not wish to be identified said."

UPDATE: According to Al Jazeera, the two men detained from Bihar state were taken from Madhubani district. KP Raghuvanshi, chief of Mumbai's anti-terrorism squad said that the individuals appeared to be linked to Nepal and Bangladesh.

Two Pakistani men were detained in Nepal recently, though it has been denied that they were linked to the Mumbai blasts.

Raghuvanshi claimed that half a kilogram of "black powder" was retrieved from the home of one of the three arrested men. The three were produced in a court today, and remanded for 10 days.

Raghuvanshi said that interrogations have shown that the three are "linked to terrorist activities". He declined to give details of how connected, if at all, the men were to the Mumbai blasts of July 11, and said that more arrests were likely.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 21, 2006 8:57 AM

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