Mumbai
06 December 2008
Indian police have arrested two suspects in connection with last week's Mumbai attack.
The
suspects were arrested late Friday for allegedly supplying mobile phone
cards to Pakistani militants who carried out the deadly three-day siege
in Mumbai.
Police investigators have said that the suspects -
arrested in Kolkata - purchased at least 22 phone cards under false
names and sent them to Pakistan.
So far, Mumbai investigators
have traced at least five SIM cards allegedly used by the gunmen during
the Mumbai attack to Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal. That's
according to Jawed Shamim, Kolkata's police commissioner.
"Our
unconfirmed reports from sister agencies tell us that one of the SIM
cards has been found in Mumbai. But this is a proper investigation and
if there is any link [to the attacks] or not will be looked into by the
Mumbai police and other agencies," he said.
The cards enabled
the gunmen to communicate with each other and with their handlers in
Pakistan without giving away their identities or their geographic
origins, police said.
Another suspect in the attacks,
25-year-old Faheem Ansari, is being brought to Mumbai from the north
Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for Mumbai police. Ansari, arrested in
Uttar Pradesh for carrying out a 2007 grenade attack on a police camp,
allegedly provided operatives of the Pakistan-based militant group,
Lashkar-e-Taiba, details of key sites in Mumbai, including the city's
international airport.
As the investigation widens within India,
a team of Mumbai detectives has been sent a team to India's northwest
coast, to a territory in the Indian state of Gujarat.
Rakesh Maria is Mumbai's police chief.
"The
fishing vessel, the MV Kuber, on which they were supposed to have
hijacked and ferried a ride here. That boat is from Porbunder on the
western coast of India. The killed captain of the [MV] Kuber, he is
from Diu and that is why are team is there," explained Rakesh Maria.
Rakesh
said at least three GPS units were found on the boat, as well as a
satellite phone. The attackers had killed the boat's captain, along
with four of its crew, as they neared Mumbai's coast.
Rakesh
also said that investigators have found a ship's log on the MV Kuber
that further suggests that only 10 gunmen were on board, countering
persistent reports in the local media that more than 10 gunmen carried
out the Mumbai attacks that killed more than 170 people and wounded
nearly 300 others.
Meanwhile, the people of Mumbai are
struggling back to normal amid beefed up security at hotels,
restaurants and some markets. Indian security officials renewed their
alerts of fresh attacks against the country's main airports.