200 witnesses listed in 26/11 chargesheet

Source: NDTV

Rashmi Rajput

Wednesday, February 25, 2009 9:19 AM (Mumbai)

The 26/11 case stands on a huge body of evidence and most importantly on eyewitnesses who saw the terrorists unleash the carnage.

The list includes police officers who were part of the 26/11 operation, Indian survivors from the Taj, Trident and Nariman House, Railway employees at the CST station who were present there on that fateful day, staff at the GT and Cama Hospitals, forensic experts , press photographers who clicked images of the terrorists, Vinod Masani — the owner of MV Kuber on which the terrorists travelled to Mumbai and Harish Sharan, the owner of the Skoda car hijacked by Qasab on night of 26/11.

The chargesheet will also include statements of the US-based CallPhonix employees — the company through which the and handlers routed their calls using VOIP.

“We got information that the terrorist were at the terrace of Cama hospital. So we took one of our teams since we were familiar with the topography,” Additional Commissioner of Police, Crime Deven Bharati said.

These men are among the 200 witnesses who have been listed in Mumbai police’s chargesheet and will play a key role in nailing Ajmal Amir Qasab.

“When I got information, I went with my team and asked the neighbours to vacate the premises,” said Ishaq Bhagwan, Assistant Commissioner of Police.

These were ordinary citizens — policemen, hotel employees of the Taj and Trident and hospital staff among others whose statements are vital to the case.

“I saw these remorseless young guys. And at that time our only priority was to save people’s life. So, we continued with the announcements,” said V D Zende, an announcer at Mumbai’s CST station.

The chargesheet is believed to be running into 10,000 pages and will include the detail accounts of these eyewitnesses.

“It was somewhere around 9.30 when I heard a loud explosion, loud sound of gunfire and grenade when I saw the terrorists. They were two young boys in backpack and looked like collegeans. As soon as the constables fired, they returned fire. It was then I clicked the pictures. I just kept shooting. I was trailing to get more. Everybody praised me next day but I just did my job,” said Sabistan D’souza, a press photographer.

FBI officials are also likely to be summoned as witnesses because they have helped the Mumbai police gather key forensic and technical evidence. But sources say they may depose through videoconference once the trial begins.

5,000 pages of Kasab charges in court today

By Our Correspondent

Mumbai

Feb. 24: An entire chargesheet, of over 5,000 pages, will be translated into Urdu to be given to Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only Pakistani terrorist captured alive during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

While the original chargesheet, more than 5,000 pages, will be filed in court by crime branch officials on Wednesday, the translated version will be given to Kasab after a few days.

“We shall be giving him a chargesheet translated into Urdu soon,” confirmed Mr Deven Bharti, additional commissioner of police, crime.

Investigators are leaving nothing to chance and have even booked Kasab for entering the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) without a railway ticket. “Kasab has been booked under various acts, including the Arms Act, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Explosives Act, Customs Act, waging war against the country and other various sections of the Railway Act. Entering the railway premises without a proper ticket is also one among the various offences registered against him,” said joint commissioner of police (crime) Rakesh Maria.

The crime branch will file a chargesheet clubbing all the 12 cases registered against the 10 terrorists on Wednesday. This will be presented in the Esplanade court, which is expected to direct it to the sessions court. The sessions court will in turn mark it to the special court constituted to conduct the trial.

The police is, however, tight-lipped regarding whether Kasab would be present in court on Wednesday. “We shall be filing the chargesheet on Wednesday. However, we have yet not decided whether to produce Kasab. We have to take into account several security factors. We shall take a call on it by Tuesday night,” said Mr Rakesh Maria.

According to a senior crime branch officer, the chargesheet shall answer all the 30 questions raised by Pakistan after they registered an offence against Kasab. The chargesheet shall also contain the statements of several FBI officers whose statements were recorded by a three-member team that visited the US a fortnight ago. “The officers shall depose in court through video-conference when the court seeks it,” he said. A total of over 200 eyewitness accounts shall be part of the chargesheet.

The government has appointed Justice M.L. Tahiliyani as the special judge for the 26/11 terror attacks trial. While special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam shall represent the prosecution, Kasab is yet to appoint a lawyer to represent him.

US think-tank warns of more attacks on city

3 Feb 2009, 0234 hrs IST,
S Balakrishnan, TNN :

MUMBAI: The Rand Corporation, a highly-respected US think-tank, has warned of more terror strikes in India in the “forseeable future”. It has also stated that the 26/11 Mumbai attack had “local assistance”. TOI was the first to report about the Lashkar-e-Taiba “fidayeens” getting local support to carry out their operation. But the investigators are still to explore the local angle.
The warning of future attacks came in the course of a testimony given by Brian Jenkins of the corporation before the US senate committee on homeland security and government affairs on January 28. It is titled `Lessons learned from the Mumbai attacks’.
Jenkins said India will continued to face a serious jihadi terrorist threat from Pakistan-based terrorist groups. “India lacks military options that have strategic-level effects without a significant risk of a military response by Pakistan. Neither the Indian or US policy is likely to be able to reduce that threat significantly in the short to medium-term. Most likely, the threat will continue to grow. Other extremists in India will inevitably find inspiration and instruction from the Mumbai attacks,” he observed.
Apart from targeting the high-profile Taj and Trident hotels, which have a large number of foreigners, the 26/11 attackers also targeted ordinary people at CST rail terminus, Jews at Nariman Point and foreigners at Leopold Cafe.
Jenkins said, terrorists designed the Mumbai attack to do what the authorities were not expecting. “There were no truck bombs or people attempting to smuggle bombs onto trains, as in previous attacks. Since attacks against high-profile soft targets are relatively easy and cheap to mount, such institutions will remain targets of future attacks. Many of India’s older symbolic buildings were not built with security considerations in mind or are at exposed locations.
Indian security agencies have taken Jenkin’s analysis seriously and are urging the government to take appropriate measures.

Images: Terrorists pictures released

Courtesy : Rediff

Images: Terrorists pictures released

December 09, 2008

If anyone needs a proof that who unleashed terror in Mumbai, here are the pictures.

The Mumbai police on Tuesday released 8 out of the 10 photographs of the terrorists involved in the Mumbai terror attack. Besides, the names of terrorists and their home town were also given. While Ajmal Kasab’s picture has already been already released, one terrorist picture is not available yet.

All terrorists were from Pakistan and they were all in 20-28 age group. Shoaib aged 20, the man who attacked the Taj was the youngest while Nasir, 28, who attacked the Nariman House, was the eldest.

Terrorists at the Taj:
Shoaib, a.k.a Soaib- Narowal Sialkot; Hafeez Arshad, a.k.a Abdul Rehman Bada- Multan; Javed, a.k.a Abu Ali- Okara; Nazeer, a.k.a Abu Umer- Faizalabad

At the Nariman House:
Nasir- Faizalabad; Babbar Imran, a.k.a, Abu Akasha- Multan;

At the CST
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab- Okara; Abu Ismail- Dera Ismail Khan

Terrorists at the Oberoi-Trident
Abdul Rehman, a.k.a Abdul Rehman Chota- Multan; Fahadullah, a.k.a Abu Fahad- Okara

Some questions about the terror attacks

Source REdiff.com

November 28, 2008 11:50 IST
Last Updated: November 28, 2008 14:16 IST
Some unanswered questions about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai need to be answered. If you wish to add questions to this list, please do e-mail questionsterror@rediffmail.com and we will post the most relevant questions here.

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How many terrorists were there? Did they number 20 as Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh told a press conference on Thursday? Or did they number many more? If two or three terrorists attacked the CST, how many terrorists were present at the Taj and Trident? Did the CST terrorists drop a grenade/explosive device at Dockyard Road on the way to the station? Or was someone else responsible for that act of terror which claimed three lives?

The terrorists are said to have set up control rooms at the Taj and Trident hotels, a Cabinet minister told PTI on Thursday. When were these bookings made? A detailed investigation into the bookings made at both hotels in the months, weeks and days before the attacks may reveal the names of suspicious guests who registered there.

Military sources tell rediff.com that there was no way the terrorists could have carried so much ammunition with them when they assaulted the two hotels with their guns blazing. They believe the ammunition may have been stored earlier in rooms at both the hotels, perhaps on the higher floors.

If some of the terrorists had registered at the hotels earlier, could these men/women have left along with the guests who were released? Did the police record the identities and addresses of the guests who were released from both hotels?

Indian Hotels Chairman Ratan Tata indicated on Thursday that the terrorists had intimate knowledge of the Taj, its service corridors, its layout. Does this mean that they had a mole inside the Taj? Or more worrying, did a couple of them work there at some point of time? Did they have drawings of the layout of the two hotels?

If the terrorists were Pakistani, how did they have such an intimate knowledge of the terrain? The two or three cowards who attacked the CST on Wednesday night made their way from the CST through a road on the left side of The Times of India building towards the Cama and Albess hospital/Azad Maidan police station, a route that is known only to true-blood Mumbaikars. Were they locals? Or did they conduct extensive reconnisance of the likely routes of escape?

These same two or three men, who are said to have commandeered ATS Chief Hemant Karkare’s [Images] police Qualis after shooting him, Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte and Inspector Vijay Salaskar, revealed similar familarity with the road outside the Esplanade Court, making an easy U-turn towards the Metro cinema junction rather than head on the road towards the CST. How did they know this if they were Pakistanis?

How did those men, whose images have appeared all over the world, get to the CST from Colaba where they are said to have landed by boat? Did they take a taxi? Or did they have local transportation? Did they come by a suburban train, which could explain the firing on one of the suburban train platforms? Who left the grenade on the Gitanjali Express, which killed a Bengali mother?

The terrorists are said to have done extensive reconnisance of the city. If they are Pakistanis, how did they get earlier entry to the city unnoticed? Did they come in by boat? Or did they use other routes to escape notice?

Such an operation could not have been conducted without extensive training and preparation, possibly on models of the Taj and Trident or Chabad House/Nariman House. Could this have been achieved at the rudimentary training camps hosted by the Lashkar-e-Tayiba in Pakistan occupied Kashmir? Or was it a more systematised operation conducted by a State agency in a hostile country?

How did they know Chabad House/Nariman House, which even long-time residents of Colaba — the area in South Mumbai where the Taj, the Leopold Cafe [Images] and Chabad/Nariman House are located — are unfamiliar with? The choice of this target indicates precision thinking — it is doubtful if the Lashkar strategists are capable of such deep strategy — and again points the needle of suspicion at a government intelligence agency in a nation inimical to India or renegades within such a bureau.

Early on Thursday morning, the television channels spoke about an exchange of fire between the terrorists and the police near the Liberty cinema (which is close to the Metro cinema/Cama hospital, but situated on an inner road). There was even fear expressed that these terrorists would enter the Bombay hospital, but nothing was heard about them thereafter. Where did they go? Were these two/three terrorists the same men who took over the police Qualis and shot at people near the Metro junction? Or have they escaped?

The police say the two men, who took over the Qualis, grabbed the Skoda that was halted at a police road block near the Girgaum Chowpatty [Images] beach. One of them was later killed by the police. Where did the other man go? Is he the Ismail, the Lashkar terrorist who is appparently singing like a canary to the police? Or is he someone else? If these are the two of the three terrorists who attacked the CST, what happened to the third man seen in photographs and video captures? Where did he vanish?

Another terrorist is said to be in custody. Where was he captured? What has he told the police?

The Times of India reported on Friday morning that wellknown food critic Sabina Sehgal-Saikia’s cellular phone recorded activity in the Raigad area, which is located across the sea from the Taj, where she was staying on the night of the attacks? Nothing has been heard from Saikia for over a day, so how did her phone reach Raigad? Could one of the terrorists have escaped under the guise of a guest to the Raigad area?

Could some of the terrorists have come by boat from the Alibag-Murud Janjira area in Maharashtra’s Raigad district, rather than from Pakistan? Boats ply through the day from the Alibaug area to the Gateway of India, and it would be easy for terrorists to use this mode of transport rather than high-speed boats which would have attracted the Coast Guard’s attention.

If the attacks were restricted to South Mumbai for logistical reasons, who was responsible for the explosion on the taxi near the Santa Cruz airport in northwest Mumbai, which is located at least 25 km from Colaba?

Uttara wants to know:

If the terrorists are interested in something, how come they have not made any demands in spite of having taken so many hostages? If they kept the hostages for so long, they should have started negotiations also. This indicates that they have some other, larger ultimate objective. What is that, and has it been investigated?

The Deccan Mujahideen [Images] may or may not be a valid front. Has the Andhra Pradesh police and security forces started investigating that? What are the results of that?

Has there been any additional discussion on the terrorists who might have escaped into Bombay city, apart from these three locations? If the dead terrorists had blueprints of the major areas in the city, it means that they might launch an attack on these locations after the Taj, Oberoi and Colaba encounters are over. Have the police been investigating this, and has there been any safety precautions? The names of these places should be circulated, and civilians asked to refrain from going to those locations, so that casualties can be at a minimum. When will this be done?

Ravi wants to know:

Why did the terrorists not blow up the full building itself? What can be the reason for this? I do not believe that they do not have the ammunition for that or planning. I believe if they wanted they could have done it.

Winnie wants to know:

What is the Navy doing around the Colaba area? Why is it not monitoring or keeping a check on what goes on in the seas just below its nose?

Why doesn’t Mumbai have enough fire ladders or other equipment which can put out fires like the ones set at the Taj?

Even in a terrorist attack why are most of our constabulary seen with antique rifles and without bulletproof attire?

Why are civilians seen in and around the affected areas in spite of a curfew call?

Why do the best hotels in Mumbai have such pathetic security?

Govind wants to know:

Are the CCTV records of the hotels available?

Assuming such large quantities of weapons had been pre-stored in the hotels, is there any security system to search these bags while being taken to the hotel?

Are there any missing hotel staff after the attack?

Rajendra wants to know:

How come the terrorists were able to fight for more then 40 hours? This is very clear that all these people got the arms and weapons ready on site in advance. Isn’t this a question on the qualification and intelligence of our police and all other security agencies?

Sujoy wants to know:

Manmohan Singh [Images] has claimed that this terror attack has been executed by external forces. What proof has the government got in order to make such a claim? Every time a situation like this happens, the government of India makes such claims and then they give no proof to anyone, especially the common people who are always kept in dark.

Vinu wants to know:

When the commandos of the navy and the army are there why were ATS officers involved in the operation, who are ill equipped and lost their life? The man who ordered this should be held responsible for the death of bright officers and must be procecuted.

Lokesh wants to know:

Why the BCCI does not organise India-Pakistan cricket matches on neutral grounds? How many Pakistanis return after the match? How many sneak through on a tourist visa?

Why cant we have a centralised SSN (Social Security Number) system in India?

Amit wants to know:

Whether there are terrorists holed up in other parts of Mumbai and surroundings, as they were inside those targeted hotels? What action is necessary for those hiding terrorists in other parts, right now unknown to us?

How did they procure AK-56 rifles? What action is necessary which need to be taken for controling smuggling of these weapons inside Indian territory?

Are we planning to carry out operations inside Pakistan where the terrorists’ headquarters are firmly believed to be located, if Pakistan cannot capture those responsible and as we have every right for pre-emptive action?

Whether we will take help of the Pakistan government and other countries in conducting such secret operations inside Pakistan to capture terrorists, as the United States is doing presently inside Pakistan if their weak system cannot achieve this?

Will military training be made compulsory for a few years for every Indian citizen as we even did not have a small division of NSG available in Mumbai, and as we face a situation like Israel facing terrorism from all geographical directions? 6. What will be done to improve on all aspects of our defence, through strengthening our economy? How India will be again made an economically attractive place? 7. Will there be a separate agency to carry out regular security checks at all places over fix intervals, as this incident reveals that we have the enemy within to whom we are not reaching?