India suspects two senior leaders of a banned Pakistani militant group orchestrated the three-day siege of the country’s financial capital that killed at least 171 people, Indian officials said yesterday, as Indian airports were put on high alert.
Evidence collected in the investigation pointed to Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Yusuf Muzammil as masterminds behind the bloody rampage in Mumbai, two government officials familiar with the matter said.
Lakhvi and Muzammil are top members of the group Lashkar-e-Taiba — which India blames for the attacks — and are believed to be living in Pakistan, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the details.
PHOTO: EPA
Lakhvi has been identified as the group’s chief of operations and Muzammil as its operations chief in Kashmir and other parts of India.
The revelations came as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Pakistan yesterday for meetings with civilian and military leaders after visiting Indian leaders in New Delhi.
She aimed to raise pressure on Pakistan’s government to help get to the bottom of the terror attacks, saying that Pakistan must mount a “robust response” to bring the terrorists to justice.
The US wants Pakistan to do more to go after terror cells rooted in Pakistan. US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen was pushing the same message in Pakistan on Wednesday.
Indian airports, meanwhile, were put on high alert after the government received warnings of possible airborne attacks.
“This is based on a warning, which has been received and we are prepared as usual,” India’s air force chief, Fali Homi Major, told the Press Trust of India news agency yesterday.
Government sources said all major airports — including New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata — were on high alert.
The sources cited intelligence “inputs” that militants may have sneaked into India to try to hijack civilian aircraft.
Last week’s attacks were carried out by 10 suspected Muslim militants against hotels, a restaurant and other sites across Mumbai.
In a stunning new example of the botched security that has sparked public outrage since the assault, police on Wednesday found two bombs at Mumbai’s main train station nearly a week after they were left there by gunmen behind the attacks.
While searching through about 150 pieces of luggage, which police believed were left by the dozens of victims in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station, an officer found a suspicious bag and called the bomb squad, Assistant Commissioner of Police Bapu Domre said.
Inside were two 4kg bombs, which were taken away and safely detonated, he said.
After the attacks, police found unexploded bombs at several of the sites, including two luxury hotels and a Jewish center.
It was not immediately clear why the bags at the station had not been examined earlier. The station, which serves hundreds of thousands of commuters, was declared safe and reopened hours after the attack.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS