The al Qaeda Link

MUMBAI: Security agencies probing the 7/11 blasts seem to be sceptical of reports indicating a nexus between the Mumbai blasts accused and the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack five years ago.

The government agencies are neither denying reports in a section of media suggesting a link between 7/11 and 9/11 nor are they confirming such reports officially.

The central agencies believe that one of the six detained for their 7/11 role had met one of the masterminds of 9/11 though Mumbai police are not sure about it.

The detained people are believed to be cadres of Pakistan-based LeT who are suspected to have executed this plan with help from local cadres of the banned SIMI, informed sources said.

Leads were picked up by investigators from various states and the hand of the LeT was quite evident, said senior officials attached with the probe. Nearly 200 people were killed and over 700 injured when bombs went off in commuter trains during the evening peak hour on July 11.

The sources said the blasts were a part of the LeT’s policy of spreading terror in the hinterland after the ’02 sectarian violence in Gujarat.

They said the role of top militants Rahil, Fayaz and Zaibuddin Ansari was becoming clearer and they are suspected to be the persons who motivated others to carry out the attacks.

The identity of those detained by central security agencies and Mumbai police will not be revealed before all checks and verification of their antecedents were completed, the sources said.

Though the hunt was continuing for Fayaz, whose name had also figured in the seizure of arms at Aurangabad and the blast outside Karnavati Express in Gujarat in February that injured 25 people, it is believed that he might have fled to Bangladesh. He is understood to be a vital link between the LeT and SIMI, the sources said.

Mohammed Rahil is another person being probed by the intelligence agencies and Mumbai police as his name cropped up during the interrogation of two LeT militants arrested in Delhi in May.

Rahil is believed to have recruited youths from Maharashtra and was instrumental in sending some of them to Pakistan via Iran.

Zaibuddin Ansari, whose links with the SIMI have been under the scanner, is believed to be the main person who provided local links for LeT terrorists to execute the train blasts. He is believed to be currently in Pakistan, the sources said.

They said Rahil and Ansari had met the Pakistani terrorist Junaid in Kathmandu. About Junaid, there is no other information available except that he heads the LeT’s operations in Nepal.

The Mumbai police though maintain that some ‘big terrorist group’ was behind the July 11 blasts and affirmed their investigations are at a final stage though they are reluctant to bring in al Qaeda as yet. “It is too early to comment on such connection,” a police official said.

Even otherwise a camera-friendly state home minister RR Patil preferred silence on the issue.