Western Resistance

« US: Khatami Praises Hezbollah, Practices Taqqiyah | | Pakistan: Deal With Taliban Islamists Is Meaningless »

September 11, 2006

India: Contradictory Information On Malegaon Mosque Bombings

News from India seems to suggest that there are more than coincidental similarities between the explosions at Malegaon in Nashik district, Maharashtra state on Friday September 8 and the train blasts at Mumbai in the same state on July 11. Nearly 300 people were killed in the Mumbai blasts, and 31 people are known to have died in the blasts at Malegaon, which happened on Shab-e-Barat, or the "Night of Fortune", a pre-Ramadan holy day. 300 people suffered injuries.

More evidence has come to light on the perpetrators of the attacks. From eyewitness accounts from the owner of the Santosh bicycle shop, where men speaking in rustic Hindi bought bicycles, and from accounts from people in the Hamidia mosque during Friday prayers, sketches of the attackers have been produced. The Indian Express states that police have only presented two of these (pictured), though there appears to have been a third man involved. The bombs on Friday were hidden in bicycles.

The Hindu quotes from the Maharashtra Director of Police, P S Pasricha, who had that he had "solid leads" suggesting the same explosives were used in both the Malegaon and Mumbai attacks. He said to reporters today: "Yes reports about similarity between the two incidents are coming in to us. We are looking into it. We have also got a few more solid leads that we are working on and I don't think it would be wise to reveal that at this moment."

Indian Express states that there were telephone calls to the offices of Dinkar, a local newspaper, warning of blasts to happen in the town. Assistant editor of the paper, Srikant Joshi confirmed that the first phone warning came on September 5. He said: "The caller warned of the blasts. The second call came on Saturday and warned of more blasts. When we checked our caller ID to trace the call, we found that they had been made from a booth in Malegaon. We have given the police all details."

P S Pasricha has denied that there were any warnings of bombs.

IBN Live states that one of the three laboratories testing samples from the scene of Friday's explosions have made an analysis of the explosives' composition. The bombs were made from a mixture of RDX, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, according to Nashik District's Superintendent of Police Rajvardhan. This composition is very similar to that used in the bombs at Mumbai.

Rajvardhan said that some people were still being questioned about the blasts, but said: "Nobody has been arrested, nobody has been detained so far."

The Hindu states that a 10-person investigation team is investigating the blasts, working in conjunction with the nashik district police and the Mumbai-based Anti-Terrorist Squad.

The Hindustan Times states that Inspector General of Nashik Police P.K. Jain has said:"The two suspects went to two separate cycle shops and bought one cycle each from them. We cannot say at this juncture if their work was limited to buying the cycles or if they also packed them with explosives and placed them at the Mushawarat chowk and Bada Kabragah to trigger the three blasts."

A Mumbai Crime Branch officer is quoted as saying: "The Students' Islamic Movement of India and the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba targeted the RSS headquarters in June and then executed blasts in Mumbai in July. The blasts in Malegaon could be their one last desperate attempt to create communal tension."

This a rather extraordinary claim, suggesting Muslims may have deliberately killed other Muslims. We reported on the planned attack upon the headquarters of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) on June 1. Three Islamists had tried to attack this center of Hindu militancy in Nagpur, eastern Maharashtra state, but were shot dead by police. 5.6 kilograms of explosive, believed to be RDX, was found in their car.

Some police officials suggested that the blasts in Malegaon bore similarities to an earlier bomb blast which happened at Vile Parle railway station in Mumbai in January 2003. Then, a bicycle and crude bomb were employed.

P.K. Jain of Nashik police said that it was hard to tell if the Malegaon bombs had been the work of the same group which set off a bomb outside a mosque in Nanded in April. He said: "In both cases, crude bombs were planted outside mosques. But while in the Nanded incident there was a single blast and the bomber had fled on a motorbike, in this case there were multiple blasts."

The incident in Nanded, a district of Maharashtra state, southeast of Nashik and adjoining Andra Pradesh, had apparently been the handiwork of a faction of the Hindu nationalist group Bajrang Dal. Yesterday, the Times of India quoted from a police official who ruled out a connection between the Malegaon and Nanded attacks. He had said: "Malegaon blasts were on a very large scale, while the Nanded blast was a minor one and locally made bombs were used for explosion."

The weaving town of Malegaon, population 500,000, which is 75% Muslim and 25% Hindu has had bouts of extreme conflict between Hindu and Muslim. A background to some of these conflicts is discussed in Rassegna Stampa Sudasia.

NDTV.com states:

"Parbhani and Nanded too witnessed blasts. There was a similar blast in Jama Masjid in Delhi. We feel the two could have a link. We don't know for sure though," said Niaz Lodhi, Chief Trustee, Bada Kabristan.

Investigators privately say that a blast of this scale is beyond the ability of groups like the Bajrang Dal, views they cannot go public with, given the volatile mood in Malegaon.

The latest edition of the Times of India states that the Anti-Terror Squad has categorically ruled out the involvement of Hindu fundamentalist groups in the Malegaon blasts. The reasoning is that RDX is only available to Islamic terrorist groups, and so far Bajrang Dal activists have only used crude devices in their attacks at Parbani and Nanded.

On May 12, a large haul of RDX and also weapons including AK-47 assault rifles was discovered in Malegaon. Since that time there has been simmering tension in the town.

The Khaleej Times notes that are contradictions in accounts, with government officials saying yesterday that no RDX was used in the Malegaon blasts, before chemical analysis had been undertaken.

What is clear, as Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress Party said after visiting Malegaon: - "These terrorist acts were aimed at creating a divide in the society."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at September 11, 2006 6:18 PM

Comments

Post a comment