POLICE BELIEVE MUSLIMS TARGETED MUSLIMS IN MALEGAON

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MUMBAI 001996

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT. FOR S, P, C, S/P, SCT, SCA, INR
S/CT FOR CRUMPTON, PALMER, ALLEGRA;
NSC FOR MILLARD/MAHONEY
DNI FOR NEGROGPONTE/POWELL/SHEDD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/8/2016
TAGS: PREL PTER PGOV KISL ASEC CASC IN
SUBJECT: POLICE BELIEVE MUSLIMS TARGETED MUSLIMS IN MALEGAON
BOMBINGS

REF: A: MUMBAI 1653; B: MUMBAI 890

CLASSIFIED BY: Michael S. Owen, Consul General, Consulate
General Mumbai, State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)



Summary and Comment

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1. (C) Maharashtra police are now convinced that Muslim
extremists purposefully targeted other Muslims in the September
8 bombings in Malegaon that killed 31 persons and injured over

200. The police have told us that Muslim extremists hoped to
inflame communal passions in a city with a history of
Hindu/Muslim violence. The police doubt that Hindu extremists
had the capability to perpetrate the attacks, and have shared
their reasons for believing so with us. Investigators also
believe that the Malegaon bombings are probably linked to the
Mumbai train bombings, yet have not been specific in both their
public and private statements. Not all of our contacts,
particularly those in the Muslim community, are willing to
believe that Muslims purposely targeted other Muslims in
Malegaon, yet we have no reason at this time to question our
police contacts' professional judgment. In any case the
investigations into the Malegaon bombings shed more light on
Muslim extremism in western India, and demonstrate that groups
such as LeT and SIMI are firmly entrenched in the region and are
seeking to attack the Indian heartland's religious harmony and
social fabric. End summary and comment.



Six Muslim Men Arrested

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2. (U) In recent days the Maharashtra police have arrested six
Muslim men in connection with the September 8 explosions in
Malegaon that killed 31 persons and injured over 200, nearly all
Muslims (ref A). Police sources told the media that they
arrested Shabbir Masiullah, aka Shabbir Batterywalla, 34, Noorul
Hooda Samsudoha, 23, Salman FARSI, 35, and Farogh Makhdomi, 33,
Raees Ahmed, no age given, and Masiullah's brother-in-law, whose
name was not given. Some of the men are from Malegaon, others
from the Mumbai area. Police believe that Masiullah was the
ring leader of the plot.



Malegaon Linked to Mumbai Train Bombings?

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3. (C) J.J. Singh, who until November 3 was second in command in
the state's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS),told Pol/Econ Chief on
November 2 that the police also had evidence linking the three
men to the Mumbai bombings. He would not be more specific.
Later, however, the local media quoted ATS chief K.P.
Raghuvanshi as only saying that the police only believed that "a
distant but definite link" existed between the two bombings. In
any case both Raghuvanshi and P.S. Pasricha, the state's
Director General of police, told the media that some of the men
were either linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and/or the banned
violent extremist Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI),
the two groups they believe are responsible for the Mumbai train
bombings.


MUMBAI 00001996 002 OF 003




Muslim Groups Clearly Behind Malegaon Bombings, Police Say

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4. (U) BACKGROUND: Several bombs exploded nearly simultaneously
on the afternoon of September 8 near a mosque and a Muslim
cemetery in a heavily visited market area of Malegaon. Police
believe that the bombings were timed to hit Muslims leaving
Friday prayers on the eve of an important Muslim holy night.
About 70 percent of Malegaon's population is Muslim, and the
city has a history of communal tensions. END BACKGROUND.




5. (C) Both publicly and privately, state police express their
conviction that Muslim extremists are behind the bombings.
Singh told us that the police have evidence that the
perpetrators of the bombings were Muslims who intentionally
targeted other Muslims. Malegaon was a hub for Muslim
extremists and provided ideal conditions to plan and execute the
bombings, Singh said. Extremist Hindu groups did not have
skills or background to prepare such explosives, he told us.
The potent military explosive RDX was used in the bombings, he
pointed out. While extremist Muslim groups are commonly
apprehended with the explosive, Singh said, similarly extremist
Hindu groups are not. The Muslim perpetrators purposely used
small amounts of the RDX explosive to limit the damage caused by
the blasts. Had they wanted to, Singh argued, they could have
caused far more causalities by using a larger dosage of RDX, but
they did not do so because their aim was just to ignite
religious tensions, not to kill as many people as possible.
Most of the persons died in the stampede that following the
bombings, Singh claimed, and not in the bombings themselves.



Muslims Question Investigators' Claims

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6. (SBU) Most of our Muslim contacts are taking a "wait and
see" attitude towards the Malegaon bombings, and a few admit
that Muslims were probably responsible. Yet some of our Muslim
contacts - ignoring current events in Iraq -- vehemently deny
that Muslims could have perpetrated attacks against other
Muslims in an attempt to inflame communal passions. Zaheer
Rizvi, a Congress politician and Secretary of the All India
Ulema Council, told us that most Muslims have little trust in
police pronouncements in both the Mumbai and Malegaon
investigations. Police generally have an anti-Muslim bias and
were quick to jump to conclusions that Muslims are responsible
for the Malegaon bombings because they have devoted too little
time to pursing Hindu extremists, Rizvi said. He said he
suspects that fringe groups associated with the RSS were
probably behind the Malegaon bombings.




7. (SBU) In a separate conversation, India Today correspondent
Uday Mahurkar also doubted that Muslims were behind the group.
Mahurkar's comments are noteworthy because he regularly argues
that Muslim extremism in western India is growing and that the
police still underestimate its reach and its threat. In his
view, Hindu groups probably carried out the bombings as revenge
for the Mumbai train explosions. Hindu extremist groups were
developing the expertise to carry out such bombings, he said.
As an example he cited the case of Naresh Rajkondwar, a leading
member of the fundamentalist Hindu group Bajrang Dal in whose
home a bomb exploded earlier this year and killed two people.

MUMBAI 00001996 003 OF 003


He also doubted that LeT would carry out such an operation in
Malegaon, a city where it most likely has numerous sleeper
cells. (Note: Police seized explosives and weapons in Malegaon
earlier this year -- see ref B -- and arrested several Muslims
who they suspect are LeT operatives. End note). LeT would not
do anything to attract more attention to itself in a city where
it has numerous operatives and significant support, Mahurkar
argued. Mahurkar isn't alone in his views. Several of Delhi
PolCounselor's interlocutors during a recent visit to Mumbai
felt that Malegaon might have been a Hindu extremist retaliation
for the Mumbai bombings. They attributed the explosion in
Rajkondwar's home to experiments with explosives that went
haywire.



Comment

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8. (C) With the exception of some of our Muslim contacts, most
of our interlocutors in Mumbai do not question the police
assertion that Muslims purposely targeted other Muslims on
September 8 in Malegaon. We, too, have no reason to believe
that Pasricha, Raghuvanshi and Singh are communally biased, and
hence we are not ready to doubt their professional judgment.
Based on our observations of the Mumbai train bombings
investigations, however, we urge caution whenever Maharashtra
police officers claim, publicly or privately, that they have
solid evidence in either of the two investigations.
Disturbingly, it now seems beyond question that groups such as
LeT and SIMI have established an effective series of cells,
equipped with weapons and explosives, in Muslim communities
throughout western India. There also exists nearly universal
consensus among our Mumbai contacts, including those in the
Muslim community, that LeT and SIMI are responsible for the
Mumbai bombings. Yet investigators appear to be struggling to
conclusively link individual operators of these groups to both
the Mumbai and Malegaon bombings. The investigation into the
Mumbai bombings, for example, has made little headway in recent
weeks, and the police are now visibly more cautious when
commenting about the investigation to the media. But we are not
ready to believe the arguments of some of our Muslim
interlocutors that a lack of a smoking gun should cast doubt on
the general direction of the investigations. Even if it turns
out that Muslims did not plan the Malegaon bombings, the
investigations show that Muslim extremism is now firmly
entrenched in western India, and working to sow the seeds of
religious tension in the Indian heartland. End comment.
OWEN