India-Pakistan |
Pak: Mumbai attacks suspect 'confesses' |
2009-04-16 |
![]() They said Riaz, a member of banned Lashkr-e-Taiba was arrested by FIA last month, on suspicion that he abetted the Mumbai attacks. "Riaz's statement was recorded under Section 164, in which he confessed that he and his four accomplices - Hammad Amin Sadiq, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid alias Zarar Shah and Mazhar Iqbal alias Abu Al Qama - assisted the Mumbai attackers and provided them logistic support to carry out the attacks," the sources said. However, sources in the court did not provide any information on the development. Riaz's counsel said the suspect was presented before the judicial magistrate, who refused to record the confession statement. |
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India-Pakistan |
Mumbai attack: US backs Indian proof of Pak hand |
2008-12-23 |
NEW DELHI: The US has endorsed the evidence gathered by Indian agencies about the complicity of Pakistan's state actors in the terrorist attack on Mumbai, in what can result in stepped up international pressure on the Zardari regime to take action against the mentors of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Top US intelligence official John Michel McConell is learnt to have expressed complete satisfaction with the strength of India's case against Pakistan, based on FBI's examination of call records of satellite and cellular phones used by Mumbai attackers and their Pakistan-based handlers. McConell confirmed that one of the numbers logged on the satellite phone the terrorists used while navigating their way to Mumbai belonged to known Lashkar terrorist Abu Al Qama. Indian intelligence officials are familiar with the satellite phone that Qama uses. The US, using its leverage with Sharjah where Thuraya is headquartered, corroborated this fact, and also the fact that Qama was passing instructions to the attackers from Pakistani soil. India's case about the Pakistan hand has also been borne out by the data the Americans retrieved, using their superior technology, from the damaged mobile phones used by terrorists while they were carrying out the massacres in Taj and Trident hotels. The phones had got severely damaged in the fire that broke out during the gunfight. "We are committed to get to the bottom of this case," US officials are learnt to have told their Indian counterparts during their interaction spread over 48 hours. The Americans are planning to confront the Pakistanis, still in denial mode, with the evidence that their own investigation has thrown up. Sources said the UK has also passed on electronic intercepts, described by a senior source as "one clinching piece of evidence", to India. McConell, along with FBI officials who have been camping in India in connection with the probe into 26/11, has held meetings with home minister P Chidambaram, national security advisor M K Narayanan and senior Indian intelligence officials. Indian experience with the US intelligence agencies has so far not been satisfactory, with the latter winking at evidence against Pakistan because of its dependence on Islamabad for success in Afghanistan. Indian agencies, however, feel that the response could be different this time because of the fact that Mumbai casualties included US nationals. The FBI is mandated to take the probe to the logical culmination, which will include charging the names of Lashkar leaders and their collaborators in ISI that come up in the probe. |
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India-Pakistan | |
Centre moves to ban Indian Mujaheddin | |
2008-09-26 | |
The Centre has taken the first step towards banning the Indian Mujahideen - which has claimed responsibility for the serial bombings in Varanasi, Faizabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Delhi - by asking states to share all the details about the outfit emerging during the ongoing probe. The move is a part of an exercise initiated recently to collect evidence against four of SIMI's national level fronts - Tahreek-e-Ehyaa-e-Ummat(TEU), Tehreek-Talaba-e-Arabia (TTA), Tehrik Tahaffuz-e-Sha'aire Islam (TTSI) and Wahadat-e-Islami - which have so far not been banned in the absence of "concrete evidence". "Since the IM is believed to be a hardline splinter of SIMI, it is important to get all the details about the outfit before making a complete dossier, an essential prerequisite before banning any outfit," said a senior home ministry official, adding the ongoing investigation has, so far, only thrown up sketchy details. The recent claims made by both the Delhi and Mumbai Police have pinpointed the IM's command in the hand of the Pakistan-based banned outfit LeT which through one of its commanders, Abu Al Qama, has not only been managing the new outfit but also acting as a vital link between both IM and SIMI for carrying out operations in India. "These are the preliminary findings which need to be corroborated by more concrete evidence in due course. The home ministry has been in touch with states before imposing a ban on the outfit," said the official. Currently, both LeT and SIMI are two of the 34 terrorist organizations banned under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967. Though LeT is banned in Pakistan as well, the outfit is still active there, with all its infrastructure intact, through its front, Jammat-ud-Dawa. The security agencies here are looking for details whether SIMI too is similarly working in India through its 50 fronts. The mystery, officials believe, will be unravelled only after the home ministry's current move on seeking details of all these fronts.
Security agencies suspect that all these fronts "are being used for carrying out SIMI's activities, including collection of funds, circulation of literature and regrouping of cadres". Twenty-three out of the 46 outfits are active in Kerala followed by eight in Maharashtra, seven in West Bengal, three in Bihar, two in Uttar Pradesh and one each in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Delhi. Though some of them are put under the list of banned outfits by the respective states, most of these organizations have been working without any restrictions. | |
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