7/11 not on the table as little evidence to join dots to Pak

The reason why the 7/11 and Malegaon serial blast cases will not be on the Indo-Pak talk table tomorrow is because there’s very little yet in terms of concrete evidence to substantiate the claims of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad which is investigating the two cases.

The reason why the 7/11 and Malegaon serial blast cases will not be on the Indo-Pak talk table tomorrow is because there’s very little yet in terms of concrete evidence to substantiate the claims of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad which is investigating the two cases. All that the police have are what they have learnt from the narco-analysis of the 7/11 accused and a SIMI activist allegedly involved in the Malegaon mosque blast.

The Maharashtra police are still trying to piece the chain of events that led to the two terror attacks. This explains the delay in filing the chargesheets. Despite arresting 12 persons in the 7/11 case and putting six through narco-analysis tests, several gaps remain to be filled. Consider these:

• The Santa Cruz shopkeeper who sold nine pressure cookers last May — the 7/11 bombs were packed in these cookers — has not been able to recognise any of the 12 arrested.

Story continues below this ad

• Police have not been to establish whether SIMI’s Maharashtra general secretary Ehtesham Siddiqui, charged with exploding the Mira Road bomb, received training in explosives or whether he travelled to Pakistan or Bangladesh.

• Police still need to establish that accused Tanvir Ansari, a Unani doctor, went to Pakistan for training in 2002-2004. That Kamal Ansari, Faisal Sheikh, Muzamil and Mohammed Ali also went to Pakistan around the same time to receive training from the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

• No fix yet on who got the explosives, who assembled the bombs and the whereabouts of the actual bombers.

• Mohammed Ali is said to be the common factor in the Mumbai blasts and Malegaon mosque attack. The police claim that he sent accused Shabbir Batterywala to Pakistan for training via Dubai. Police claim that the Malegaon bombs were assembled in Batterywala’s garage — they found RDX traces there — but on September 8, the day of the Malegaon blasts, Batterywala was being questioned by the Mumbai police.