NEW DELHI, Sept 30: Indian police on Saturday accused the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of masterminding the Mumbai train bomb blasts in July which killed nearly 200 people.
Mumbai Police Commissioner A.N. Roy told a news conference in India’s financial capital that the case had been solved, adding that the blasts had been carried out by a group of Pakistanis and Indians who used explosive RDX packed in pressure cookers.
“It was a professional, precise and well-planned operation,” he said.
The police commissioner said ISI was the ‘mastermind’ behind the July 11 attack and the blasts were carried out by the Lashkar-e-Toiba militant group which was aided by the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
Of the 15 people arrested for the blasts, 12 had a ‘direct role in carrying them out. Eleven of them were Pakistanis, who had arrived in India in batches.
The conspiracy was hatched in Mumbai and adjoining areas after the groups were trained in Bahawalpur in Pakistan, he said.
The lethal parcels were loaded on to taxis and taken to the busy Churchgate Station, from where the accused took the subway, he said.
The main conspirators were identified as Faizal Sheikh, Kamaluddin Ansari and Ehtasham Siddiqui, general secretary of SIMI, Maharashtra.
Mr Roy said two of the alleged Pakistanis came through Nepal and reached Mumbai around May 25.
The second group came via Bangladesh after spending some time in Kolkata. The last group of four people came through the Gujarat border.
About 15 to 20kgs of explosive was used in the blasts which was brought from Pakistan by a man called Ehsanullah. Ammonium nitrate that was mixed with RDX was provided by local groups. Mumbai resident Mohammad Ali put together the bombs in Chembur around July 8 to 10.
AFP adds: The police commissioner said the attackers placed bombs in pressure cookers which were “kept in bags and then camouflaged by newspapers and umbrellas” in the trains.
He said some of his information was gleaned from suspects arrested since the attacks and questioned under the influence of drugs, an interrogation method called ‘narco-analysis’.
He also said police had traced money spent on the attacks back to Pakistan.
All the bombs were fitted with timers and all but one of the bombers left the trains before the bombs went off, he said.
One, Saleem, a Pakistani from Lahore, died in the explosions and another in a shootout with police in Mumbai, he said, adding police had found no evidence that Al Qaeda was involved in the attacks.
