POLICE MAKE FIRST ARRESTS IN MUMBAI TRAIN BOMBING CASE

C O N F I D E N T I A L MUMBAI 001356 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR OPS CENTER, S/CT, SCA/INS, DS, DS/IP/ITA, DS/IP/SCA, DS/ICI/PII E.O. 12958: DECL: 7/19/2016 TAGS: PREL PTER PGOV KISL CASC ASEC PK IN SUBJECT: POLICE MAKE FIRST ARRESTS IN MUMBAI TRAIN BOMBING CASE REF: MUMBAI 1332 CLASSIFIED BY: Michael Owen, Consul General, Consulate General Mumbai, State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) Investigators have reportedly made the first formal arrests in connection with the July 7 train bombings in Mumbai that killed over 180 people. If the media reports match information we have received from the police, then those arrested are suspected of having helped move materials for the bombing from Pakistan to Mumbai via Nepal and the Indian state of Bihar. ¶2. (U) The local media quoted police sources as saying that officials arrested two men from the town of Madhubani in Bihar late on July 20 and one man in Navi Mumbai early on July 21. Navi Mumbai is a suburb located to the northeast of Mumbai. The three were to be brought before a Mumbai court on July 21. The man from Navi Mumbai has been identified only as "Mumtaz." The press is giving various names for the two men arrested in Bihar. One is called either "Mohammad Kalam" or "Kamal" and the second "Khaleel Aziz" or "Khalil Azeem." ¶3. (C) The names of two of those arrested match information that Consulate Mumbai received from the local police in an earlier briefing. K.S. Pasricha, Director General of the Maharashtra police, told us on July 19 (reftel) that investigators were searching for a man from Bihar whom Pasricha called "Kamal" and two persons from Uttar Pradesh, on of whom he called "Mumtaz." Pasricha said the police suspected that "Kamal" played a central role in the planning and execution of the Mumbai train bombings. He told us that investigators now believed that materials and manpower for the operation came to Mumbai from Pakistan via Nepal and Bihar. In Bihar, "Kamal" played an important logistics role in moving the material to Mumbai, Pasricha told us. Police had observed the person known as "Mumtaz," along with a second person, for several weeks before the bombings, and registered a spike in communications on the day of the bombings. "Mumtaz" and the second man from UP were brothers-in-law of "Kamal," Pasricha had said. He promised to give us the full names of the three men but has yet to follow up. If two of the three were in fact from UP, it is unclear when they traveled to Navi Mumbai and Bihar, respectively. Comment -------------- ¶4. (C) Various media outlets are reporting additional arrests in this fast moving case, none of which could be verified late on July 21. The media is calling the three arrests in Bihar and Navi Mumbai a breakthrough. That may be the case, yet we exercise caution when commenting on the progress of the investigation. Pasricha did tell us that the police believed that "Kamal" played a key logistical role in the bombings, yet he was not specific. The police may have hard evidence linking the three individuals to the attacks, and Pasricha may have been reticent to share such sensitive information with us. But it is also possible that investigators have little on the three over and beyond a series of tapped phone calls of unknown or unclear content. We will probably learn more in the coming days, at a press conference scheduled for late on July 21, or through leaks to the media by unnamed "police sources" that often turned out to be untrue or wrongly reported. End comment. OWEN