Indian police arrested 10 members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India in connection with bombings that killed at least 50 people in the western state of Gujarat last month.
Nine of the people were arrested in Gujarat, while the “mastermind,” Abu Bashir, was arrested in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, H.P. Singh, joint police commissioner, said by phone from Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s largest city.
The suspects have been charged with “waging a war against the state” and murder, P.C. Pandey, director-general of police, told reporters.
The July 26 attack in Ahmedabad, comprising 16 bombs, came a day after a similar attack in Bangalore that killed two and about two months after an attack in Jaipur. An Islamist group calling itself the “Indian Mujahedeen” claimed the Gujarat attack was in revenge for violence between Hindus and Muslims in 2002, an e-mail sent to the press said. The group also threatened more attacks.
“These arrests may give leads to other blasts,” including the Jaipur attack, the state-run broadcaster Doordarshan quoted Pandy as saying.
“Indian Mujahedeen” is “another form” of the Students Islamic Movement, he said. Members of the outfit were trained in jungles in the southern state of Kerala two years ago and in Gujarat in January, he said.
The Ahmedabad attack comprised a series of small explosions across the city designed to create panic, Doordarshan quoted Ashish Bhatia, joint police commissioner of the crime branch, as saying. A more powerful car bomb was then exploded at the city’s Civil Hospital as the injured sought help. The blast killed 29.
The bombs in Ahmedabad, a city of 4.5 million, were all timed using digital watches to detonate between 6:30pm and 8pm.
The attacks mirrored nine near-simultaneous explosions in Jaipur on May 13 that killed at least 60 people as the same chemical, ammonium nitrate, and timers were used, Singh said in an interview on Aug. 4. Bicycles were also strapped with explosives in Jaipur and Ahmedabad, he said.
India has failed to bring a single prosecution regarding 16 attacks in three years, as investigators have been hampered by a lack of resources, political meddling and squabbling between state and federal agencies.
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