A month on, cops clueless on 7/11

Mumbai: On July 11 Mumbai's lifeline was crippled at 6.13 pm, as one after another, seven blasts within seven minutes in the first class compartments of Western Railway local trains left close to 200 dead and over 700 injured.

After exactly a month, on August 11, the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) still is a long way from solving the case despite hundreds of detentions and finally a total of eight arrests. Only thing that the ATS officials keep repeating is that these are vital arrests.

Chronology of the arrests:

July 21 - The first trio was arrested on the 10th day of the blast. Kamal Ansari and Mohammad Aziz Shiekh were arrested from Madhubani while Mumtaj Maqbool Chaudhary was arrested from Navi Mumbai.

July 22 - A day later police arrested the fourth person a qualified Yunani doctor Tanvir Ansari.

July 24 - Two days later, a police team arrested Sohail Sheikh and Zameer Ahmad from Pune.

July 24 - On the same day police also arrested brothers Faizal Sheikh and muzamil sheikh.

Faizal Sheikh is said to be a high ranking LeT operative who had recruited a few of the others arrested so far.

Investigations have revealed that all them have been SIMI activities and many of them have received arms trainings across the border.

But the ATS is yet to ascertain their exact role in the blasts and ATS chief said their role cannot be explained.

"Jab tak puri conspiracy khul kar samne nahi aa jati, kisike individual role ke bare mei kuchh bhi kehna uchit nahi hoga," (Until the whole conspiracy come to the fore, it will not be proper to say anything about anyone’s individual role), said ATS chief K P Raghuvanshi.

Police sources don't doubt the authenticity of these arrests, but at the same time hint at the fact that while the real culprits are still at large, at best, the police might have unearthed a sleeper cell by way of these arrests.

"Bomb blast ek larger conspiracy hai, iss mei bahot sare players hai; jab tak aur baki aropi atak nahi hote, iss se jada kuchh bolna uchit nahi hoga," (Bomb blast is a larger conspiracy, which involves many things. Unless rest of the accused are arrested, it will not be proper to say anything more about it), said Raghuvanshi.

It is quite clear that the masterminds are at large, but is it not clear how exactly the train bombings conspiracy was carried out, and for the Mumbai police, the task is far from over.

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