13 arrested, but 7/11 mastermind still at large

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Mumbai: Thirteen people are under arrest for the serial blasts on Mumbai trains on July 11 last year but the Maharashtra Police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) hasn’t tied up all the loose ends in the case yet.

Seven blasts in 11 minutes on Western Railway local trains killed 187 people and injured 890. Eighty-one days later the police claimed they had cracked the 7/11 case.

A N Roy, who was the Mumbai Police Commissioner then, alleged that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence was the mastermind behind the blasts which were carried out by the militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) with help from Students’ Islamic Movement of India.

Five bombers, including LeT’s Mumbai chief Faisal Sheikh, are among the 13 people under arrest but five Indians and seven Pakistanis are still absconding.

The main conspirator Azam Cheema and his close aides Rizwan Dawre and Rahil are still free.

Two of the 11 Pakistanis allegedly involved in the blasts were killed in an encounter in North Mumbai on August 21 but when the trial begins the police will have to answer crucial questions. The police have yet to establish the identity of two bombers who could not be caught

It is still now know what was used to conceal the bombs—pressure cookers or utensils? Why did Pakistan risk sending a 15-member team to India when six of the 13 people arrested had allegedly been trained in its territory?

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The defence will certainly use these unanswered questions to corner the police. “They have found the same witness who was also a witness in the Ghatkopar and the Gateway of India blasts. How is that possible?” asks defence lawyer Shahid Azmi.

The Mumbai Police lost face when all accused in the Ghatkopar blasts case were acquitted but this times investigators are confident of convictions. "I assure you that we have arrested the right people and we have enough evidence to bring the accused to book,” says ATS chief K P Raghuvanshi.