MUMBAI, 21 January 2007 — Four people, including a woman, were arrested with over 6 kilograms of powerful explosives near a crowded train station in Mumbai yesterday, six months after a string of train bombings killed 186 people in India’s financial hub.
The arrests were made near the Andheri station, one of the busiest halts on Mumbai’s suburban railroad network, following a tip-off by intelligence agencies, police said.
“We suspect them to be explosive runners who could have been entrusted with delivering the consignment of trinitrotoluene (TNT) to a local contact,” said V.K Choubey, the additional commissioner of police.
The seizure came days before India’s Jan. 26 Republic Day, when anti-India militants and separatists have traditionally unleashed violence and called for boycotts of the celebrations.
Seven bombs ripped through trains and stations on Mumbai’s local railroad network last July, for which investigating agencies have blamed Pakistan-based militants fighting Indian rule in the northern revolt-torn region of Kashmir.
Meanwhile, Muslim convicts in serial bomb blasts in 1993 in Mumbai have appealed to their fellow believers to boycott elections for the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Feb. 1. The appeal was made through a hand-written, four-page letter in Urdu and Hindi signed by some of the 100 convicts in Arthur Road Jail. The letter was smuggled out of the high-security prison and distributed to worshippers outside mosques after Friday prayers in Mumbai.
In their appeal, the convicts savaged Muslim leaders, including a former chief minister, members of Parliament, legislators and municipal councilors, and said that they did nothing to help the convicts. “The Muslim politicians as well the Congress-led Democratic Front government totally neglected the Muslim convicts,” the appeal said and alleged that it was in fact Congress which had pressed the charge of treason on the Muslims.
Sarfaraz Turk — son of Abdul Gani Turk, one of the blast convicts — told reporters separately that Muslims had no problems with the Shiv Sena, but have lost confidence in Congress, the NCP and the Samajwadi Party. “It’s better to die one than ten times. That is why Shiv Sena is preferable and acceptable now to the Muslim community” Turk said.
