Torture signs on Mumbai Jews
Correspondents in Mumbai and Islamabad | December 06, 2008
Article from: The Australian
GRUESOME evidence emerged yesterday that of the six people killed at a Jewish centre in the Mumbai massacre had been tortured, as India claimed it had identified the attackers' handlers and trainers from Pakistan's military intelligence agency.
Police said yesterday some of the bodies found in the Chabad headquarters appeared to have strangulation marks and savage wounds that did not come from gunshots or grenades.
"The victims were strangled," said Rakesh Maria, a senior Mumbai police official. "There were injuries noticed on the bodies that were not from firing."
Members of an Israeli rescue group that had a team in Mumbai said it was impossible to tell whether the bodies had been abused because no autopsies were conducted, in accordance with Jewish tradition.
Investigators now had "the names of the handlers and trainers, (and) the locations where the training was held", The Hindu reported, quoting an unidentified source.
As investigators stepped up the questioning of the captured gunman, airports across India were put on high alert amid fresh warnings that terrorists planned to hijack an aircraft.
There were fears that 14 terrorists given the same training as the Mumbai gunmen were preparing to mount 9/11-type attacks using hijacked passenger planes.
Defence Minister AK Antony ordered the nation's armed forces to be on guard against "terror strikes from the air" eight days after India suffered its worst terrorist attack in 15 years, when at least ten gunmen struck targets including a hospital, two luxury hotels and a backpacker bar in south Mumbai, killing 171 people.
Ajmal Amir Kamal, the sole Mumbai gunman to be caught alive, has told interrogators he was one of 24 men being trained in militant camps in Pakistan. So far only ten - Kamal and nine others who were killed in Mumbai - have been accounted for. "The whereabouts of the 14 missing men is of utmost concern," a police source said.
The Mumbai police yesterday identified a second Pakistani terrorist as a planner of the bloody assaults on the city and confirmed they were investigating whether a Mumbai man arrested on terrorism charges had scoped out some of the high-profile targets the attackers struck.
The new links to Pakistan added complications to US diplomatic efforts to secure cooperation between India and Pakistan.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended her trip to Islamabad yesterday saying Pakistan's President had assured her his Government would go after anyone connected with the attacks in Mumbai - even as Islamabad continued to express deep scepticism that Pakistanis were to blame. The divide over the source of the attacks - India has put together a case against Pakistan-based Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Toiba as the orchestrator - appears to be pushing the two South Asian neighbours toward a dangerous new phase. Pressure is mounting on India to take some action against their country's longtime foe, such as a strike against terrorist camps in Pakistan.
US State Department officials are pushing for dramatic action from Pakistan, including arrests and possible extradition of suspects, in order to alleviate public pressure on India's Government.
In private, US officials acknowledge that such actions might be difficult for Dr Rice to secure, given the potential political backlash against Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari.
Mr Zardari's civilian Government, Pakistan's first in nearly a decade, is only 10 months old, and there is widespread doubt about how much power he has over the two institutions needed to crack down on militants: the military and the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which many terror experts contend has at least some ties to LET.
Indian, US and other Western officials say they link the Mumbai attacks to LET through the confession of the sole terrorist captured and a combination of communications intercepts and human intelligence.
Islamabad's disbelief that the attackers came from Pakistan worries Western policymakers, who fear a repeat of what happened after Islamic militants attacked India's parliament in 2001, killing 15 people. LET was among the groups blamed for that attack, and India and Pakistan had to be talked back from the brink of war.
A Western diplomat in New Delhi said the perception in the diplomatic community was that the situation was deteriorating, as India faces public pressure in the face of Pakistan's refusal to hand over people India wants.
"My sense a couple of days ago was that if Pakistan could make some sort of real gesture, we might be able to get some progress," the diplomat said. "I thought the odds were against some form of intervention from the Indian side; I'm less sure now. There's got to be some gesture. If there isn't, something's going to happen."
Full-blown war still seems unlikely. A conflict would damage India's economy and undermine Pakistan's struggle against Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters dug in on its border with Afghanistan.
But there is speculation that India could try to launch some kind of limited strike against militant camps in Pakistan.
Torture signs on Mumbai Jews | The Australian
