Indian police have detained about 350 people in connection with the deadly Mumbai train bombings, as a top official said on Thursday that investigators believe they ”should have something substantial soon”.
The detentions came as a man claiming to represent al-Qaeda reportedly claimed on Thursday that the terror network has set up a wing in Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan where Muslim militants are fighting for independence.
There was no way to immediately verify the claim, which if true would be the first time Osama bin Laden’s network has claimed to have spread to Indian territory.
Seven teams of investigators are moving ahead in their probe of the bombings, said DK Shankaran, the top bureaucrat in Maharashtra state. Mumbai is the capital city of Maharashtra.
”We are hopeful of a breakthrough. The probe into blasts is on track and we should have something substantial soon,” he said in a telephone interview.
He provided few details, but repeated comments by other officials, who said Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, an Islamic militant group that operates in Kashmir, appears to have been involved. ”Different indicators are there which hint at their involvement,” he said, refusing to elaborate.
Lashkar has in the past employed near-simultaneous explosions to attack Indian cities. A spokesperson for Lashkar, Abdullah Ghaznavi, has denied the group was involved.
Also on Thursday, the government issued a statement after a Cabinet meeting, saying it is committed to combating terrorism in the wake of the eight explosions on Tuesday in Mumbai’s commuter train network. At least 200 people were killed and more than 700 injured.
”Nothing will deter us from our firm policy to fight this menace till it is wiped out. We are determined to apprehend and bring to justice all those responsible for the evil acts in Mumbai,” said a Cabinet statement.
Most of the 350 detentions were made overnight in Malwani, a north-eastern suburb of Mumbai, said police Inspector S Goshal. He said none of them has been formally arrested or charged, and they were rounded up only for questioning to help with the investigations.
Mumbai police Commissioner AN Roy confirmed a large number of people were detained but refused to give an exact figure. He said those rounded up include known thugs, gangsters and troublemakers, who might have information about the culprits.
Kashmir’s Current News Service reported that it received a telephone call from a man who identified himself as Abu al-Hadeed, an Arabic name. The man, however, spoke in Urdu, the language of most Muslims in the Indian subcontinent.
The news service, based in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian part of Kashmir, reported that the man said: ”Today a unit of al-Qaeda has been established in Jammu and Kashmir which shall henceforth be called al-Qaeda Jammu and Kashmir.”
The man also praised the Mumbai bombings. ”Whosoever has carried out the attacks in Mumbai, we express our gratitude and happiness,” the man reportedly said, and appealed to Indian Muslims to take up jihad against the Indian government.
Jihad in Arabic means struggle — spiritual or physical — but in recent years it has come to imply armed struggle by Muslims.
The Indian foreign ministry demanded on Wednesday that neighbouring rival Pakistan dismantle all terrorist networks on land it controls — but fell short of directly accusing it for the attacks.
In an interview with The Associated Press in Washington, Pakistan’s foreign minister dismissed suggestions that his country bore responsibility for the attacks.
On Thursday, drivers and security guards from the trains hit by bombs told reporters about their little-noticed efforts on the day of the tragedy to carry the injured to hospitals and pulling mangled bodies from twisted metal.
Driver Anjani Kumar said he slammed on his train’s brakes when he heard a loud noise soon after he had pulled out of the Khar station. ”It was as if the train had hit a hard rock,” Kumar said.
Drenched from the persistent drizzle and working in fading evening light, Kumar said he managed to pull scores of injured people from the mangled wreckage of the train.
He ignored his wife’s repeated calls, and her pleas that he come home. Friends and relatives also kept calling. ”Finally, I switched off my mobile phone.” he said.
Ravindra Dalvi, a security guard on another targeted train, described Tuesday as the longest night of his life.
”My clothes were drenched with blood and rain, I was exhausted and washed out. But I felt exhilarated that in some small way I may have saved a life, made one family happy,” said Dalvi, a small-built man with scholarly spectacles. — Sapa-AP
Associated Press reporters Ramola Talwar and Tim Sullivan in Mumbai, Mujtaba Ali Ahmad in Srinagar, and Vijay Joshi and Matthew Rosenberg in New Delhi contributed to this story