No Smoking Gun Yet

There has so far been no breakthrough in the police investigation into theseven well-synchronised explosions targeting train commuters in Mumbai on July11, 2006, in which around 200 persons were killed and over 700 injured.

Compared to the serial bombings of March,1993, the progress in theinvestigation has been much slower this time with no breakthrough in sight. In March,1993, the initial breakthrough came within a few hours of the blastsbecause the terrorists had placed the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) instolen cars. The number plates of the cars provided a useful starting point forthe investigation. Moreover, one of the IEDs failed to explode and was recoveredintact. An abandoned car with some AK-47s of Chinese make and hand-grenades ofPakistani make was found. On checking the immigration records at the Mumbaiinternational airport, the intelligence agencies found that an entire Muslimfamily, engaged in the travel business, had left Mumbai for Dubai in twobatches--one batch before the day of the explosion and the other on the eveningof the day of the explosion. Checking of the airport records at Dubai showedthat some of them had travelled to Karachi a few weeks earlier by the PakistaniInternational Airlines and returned to Dubai some days later. They travelledwith visas on plain paper issued by the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai so thattheir passports did not carry any entry regarding their travel to Karachi. Someof the perpetrators fled to Kathmandu by road and from there to Dubai. Thosedays, the terrorists did not observe much of communication security. Many of thetelephone calls between Dawood Ibrahim, the mafia leader then based in Dubai,who organised the explosions with the assistance provided by Pakistan'sInter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and his men in Kathmandu, who were monitoringthe progress of the police investigation and reporting to him, were intercepted.There was excellent co-operation from the Nepal Police.

Within a few hours of the explosions, P.V.Narasimha Rao, the then PrimeMinister, took the following action:

• He asked Rajesh Pilot, then Minister of State for Internal Security, to fly to Mumbai in a special Air Force plane with senior officials of the Government of India dealing with internal security to visit the scenes of the explosions, discuss with the Chief Minister of Maharasdhtra and his officers and report to him (the PM) their observations with recommendations for action by the Government of India.
  
  
• He asked Shri Abdul Kalam, who was then Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, and some of his scientists to fly to Mumbai to assist the Mumbai Police in the forensic examination and particularly in determining the nature of the explosives used.
  
  
• He directed the heads of the intelligence agencies of the Government of India to fly to Mumbai and assist the Mumbai Police in the investigation.
  
  
• He directed the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) to contact the heads of the intelligence agencies of the UK and the USA and request them to depute their counter-terrorism experts to Mumbai so that they could inspect the scene for themselves and come to their own conclusions regarding any Pakistani involvement.
  
  
• He rang up the heads of the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Nepal and sought their co-operation in the investigation.
  
  
• He set up a special group in New Delhi to continuously monitor the progress of the investigation and keep him informed. It acted in tandem with a similar group, which had been set up in Mumbai by Shri Sharad Pawar, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

It is disturbing that even five days after the blasts our forensic expertshave not been able to establish the nature of the explosives used. Initially, itwas reported that RDX might have been used. Then, the suspicion fell on dynamite. The latest needle of suspicion points to ammonium nitrate. I heard alocal official associated with the investigation say on the TV on the afternoonof July 16 that forensic evidence collected from the scene has not so farenabled the forensic experts to determine the nature of the explosive used.

One does not know what follow-up action has been taken by the government ofIndia to assist the Mumbai Police in their investigation. Two claims of adubious nature have been made after the explosions. The first claim reportedlycame in the form of a telephone call from an individual who gave his name as AbuAbdul Rehman al Ansari. He claimed that an Al Qaeda unit has been formed inJammu & Kashmir and that he has been appointed its chief.

One should not take this claim seriously for the following reasons. Firstly,there is so far no evidence of any support to Al Qaeda from Kashmiri Muslims.They have been supporting the Pakistani jihadi organisations, which are membersof Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF), but they have beenkeeping away from Al Qaeda and bin Laden. The Kashmiri jihadi organisationsbelieve they cannot achieve their aims without US support. They feel any supportfrom them to Al Qaeda might cost them US support. Any evidence of support for AlQaeda and its ideology has come from non-Kashmiri Muslims living in other partsof India. More non-Kashmiri Muslims demonstrated against the visit of PresidentBush to India in March than Kashmiri Muslims.

Secondly, for their kuniyats (assumed names) Al Qaeda members choosethe names of one of the companions of the Holy Prophet. No jihadi would assume akuniyat similar to what this telephone caller has assumed. The HizbulMujahideen, one of the indigenous Kashmiri organisations, which has itsheadquarters in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), has said in a statement:"Al Qaeda had neither any base in Jammu and Kashmir in the past nor does ithave any at present." This statement is meant to reassure theAmericans, one of the benefactors of the indigenous Kashmiri jihadiorganisations. One should not forget the active involvement of Ms Robin Raphael,then posted in the US Embassy in Delhi, with the Kashmiri jihadi organisationsin the early 1990s before President Clinton selected her for the StateDepartment.

The second claim has come from an organisation calling itselfLashkar-e-Qahhar. A claim from an organisation with a similar name had also comeafter the explosions in Varanasi in March last. This claim has come in the formof an e-mail signed John Smith. I am inclined for the present to doubt theauthenticity of this claim too because no jihadi organisation worth its saltwould use a Christian or Jewish Kuniyat.

In the absence of concrete leads about the persons actually involved, themedia--print and electronic--have been circulating a lot of other names ofpersons suspected to have been involved. Among these names are Rahil AbdulRahman Sheikh, Zulfiquar Fayaz Qazi and Zabiuddin Ansari, all said to be Indiansfrom Maharashtra, belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba. There was reportedlysuspicion of their involvement in the smuggling of a large consignmrent of RDXexplosives recovered by the police in the Aurangabad area in May, 2006.

The smoking gun of 7/11 is yet to be found.

B. Raman is Additional Secretarey (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai.