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Pakistan links with terrorist strikes : More evidence found

	November 13, 2006

Maharashtra Police say that they have collected more evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in the 7/11 Mumbai serial blasts. Pakistani nationals have been found to be involved in the Sept. 8 blasts in Malegaon. In another setback for Pakistan’s claim that it has nothing to do with terrorist incidents in India, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher has said that terrorist groups responsible for attacks in India, including the strikes in Mumbai recently, have origin and links in Pakistan. But speaking in New Delhi on Nov. 10, he did not take a position on whether the terror linkages are sponsored by the Pakistan Government.



Intelligence sources say that India has ‘pretty good’ evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in the Mumbai serial blasts, which will be put on the table during the India-Pakistan Foreign Secretary level talks beginning tomorrow, November 14. The sources said five of the 15 people arrested in connection with the 7/11 serial blasts, on whom narco-analysis tests were conducted, came out with similar versions of the training camps at Bahawalpur in Pakistan, where they have been taught how to use arms and explosives for terror strikes. They also gave a similar description of the man coordinating their training, which the sources say, was Azam Cheema, an ‘operative’ of Pakistan’s inter-services intelligence, ISI.



The narco-analysis procedure, where a suspect is interrogated after being put under sedation, is not admissible as evidence in Indian courts. But it is accepted as evidence in several other countries including France. The information given by the suspects also matched with the intercepts picked up by the Army’s Corps of Signals.





Pakistani hand in Malegaon blasts



Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad says that it has information now about the role of Pakistani nationals in the Sept. 8 blasts outside a mosque in Malegaon.



In its application seeking police custody for accused Dr. Salman Farsi Aimi (35) and Dr. Farogh Maqdumi (33), the ATS stated that the duo provided shelter to their Indian and Pakistani accomplices and were conspirators in smuggling of RDX and other devices into Malegaon in May 2006 along with their Pakistani associates and some members of the banned SIMI.



Aimi and Maqdumi, both Unani doctors and SIMI activists, had meetings with other conspirators for trafficking RDX and other material, the petition said. Joint Commissioner of Crime, K. P. Raghuvanshi said on Nov. 7 that some of the accused have mentioned that Pakistanis were involved. “We need to verify this and we are gathering more information from the accused,” he said.





Airports put on alert



Following receipt of an anonymous warning that the Al Qaeda was targeting airports in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the Government put airports across the country on full security alert last week. Trichi airport in Tamil Nadu had received a letter written in Tamil warning of possible Al Qaeda strikes. The Central Industrial Security Force which provides security at all civilian airports has said that the specific threat was directed at six airports - Trichi, Madurai, Chennai, Coimbatore, all in Tamil Nadu and Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi in Kerala.



The letter received by Trichi airport claimed that Al Qaeda terrorists had penetrated the security of Chennai airport and that bombs would be planted in and around the airport. It said the terrorists would strike at the airport with sophisticated technology followed by attacks at other airports in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.



American FBI has conveyed similar information to Indian authorities.





Progress in foiled terror attack on Karnataka legislature



Meanwhile, Karnataka police have found more information about the Al Badr plot to blow up the Karnataka legislature building in Bangalore. Al Badr terrorist Mohd. Fahad, who was arrested in Mysore, has revealed links leading to a terror sleeper cell he helped set up in the national capital, Delhi.



According to sources, Fahad told his interrogators that he had visited Delhi four times since April to distribute huge cash amounts to different members of the Al Badr module.



The Al Badr man’s disclosures are seen as confirmation that the outfit, smaller in comparison to more notorious outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, is now trying to widen the scope of its so-called jehad outside Jammu and Kashmir.



Intelligence agencies are looking into Fahad’s Delhi connections and probing leads he provided about locations where he met members of the Al Badr cell in the Capital.



Fahad, a 24-year old Karachi resident, was the resident agent of the outfit in control of its finances in India. In October, after his arrest, intelligence officials had recovered from his possession phone numbers and contact details of Al Badr sympathizers in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan from where the terrorist was receiving funds through hawala and wire transfer.



The set up for the Al Badr terrorist in Karnataka was established by his father who had migrated to Pakistan in 1969. Fahad, an M.Sc. in Chemistry from Karachi University who had acquired expertise in explosives making, came with his father in 2005 to the southern state and started a garments shop along with his step brother there.





US turn around on Pak links with terror



In a far cry from his statement in July this year when he implied that India had no evidence against Pakistan’s involvement in terror strikes, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said on Friday, Nov. 10, that terrorist outfits mounting attacks on India have their origin and links in Pakistan. Speaking after a meeting in New Delhi with Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Mennon, he said, “Many of the links (of groups) that are talked about go back to their origin and ties in Pakistan. We all need to work together against terrorism through effective actions so that people in India do not suffer from these blasts.”



He added : “The Mumbai blasts and the series of blasts in India highlight the need to deal with the problem of terrorism.”



Boucher said, the United States hopes that the soon-to-be-formed anti-terrorism mechanism between India and Pakistan would produce results that stop violent actions in the region and is not restricted to the improvement of political relations between New Delhi and Islamabad. He, however, refused to comment on a statement made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that India possessed credible evidence to suggest that Pakistani intelligence was behind the recent Mumbai blasts.



“You’re asking for a comment on an Indian Government position that I’ve not heard from the Indian Government. And so I’m not going to comment on your comment,” Boucher said.



The US Assistant Secretary who arrived in New Delhi from Islamabad, clearly did not want to be seen taking a position on repeated Indian assertions that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate was behind the Mumbai blasts, given the “strategic” nature of Washington-Islamabad relations.





More convictions in the 1993 blasts case



Nine more persons have been convicted in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case as Special Court Judge P.D. Kode continues delivery of his judgement on different accused. On Thursday, Nov. 9, the court held five aides of prime absconding accused, Mohd. Dossa, guilty of aiding and abetting terrorist acts. It found Jamir Kadri, Faki Ali Faki Ahmed, Janardan Gambas, Abdulla Ibrahim Surti and Sayed Ibrahim Kadri guilty of possessing and concealing arms at the instance of Dossa, who had allegedly smuggled arms and RDX at the instance of prime conspirator Dawood Ibrahim for use in the blats. Syed Ismail Kadri, father of Jamir Ibrahim Kadri was, however, acquitted by the Judge who gave him the benefit of doubt.



On Friday, Nov. 10, Judge P D Kode held four persons guilty of abetment including one named Mujib Parkar.



Parkar had purchased thousands of gunny bags to aid the smuggling of arms and RDX through Shekhadi in coastal Raigad in the run-up to the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai.



Parkar and his father Sharif Parkar were co-accused in the case. Judge P D Kode had already pronounced the senior Parkar guilty of abetment and has now accepted testimonies of four witnesses and confession statements of the co-accused to hold junior Parkar guilty of helping the conspirators land arms and RDX for the attack.



Observers say, as the judgment in the 1993 bomb blasts case proceeds, details of the intricate planning behind it and the different roles played by each of the accused keep tumbling out.



With Friday’s conviction, the tally of those convicted has risen to 70 while those acquitted now number 20. The judge has also recorded statements of those found guilty on Friday for disposing arms. They pleaded for light sentences - one of them Abdul Surti (42) cried as he pleaded that he was an auto-rickshaw driver in Raigad and the sole earning member of a family comprising his wife and five children, the youngest of whom is a one-month old baby.