The police in New Delhi have arrested a man suspected of being one of the planners of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 160 people, the government said Monday. The police did not provide the suspect’s name, referring to him only by the alias Abu Jindal. Indian news media reports have identified him as Sayeed Zabiudeen Ansari.
The man, thought to be a member of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, is accused of delivering instructions by telephone to 10 heavily armed Pakistanis as they were carrying out the two-day siege that terrorized Mumbai with attacks on a railroad station, a major hotel, restaurants and a Jewish center.
The authorities were able to intercept and record some of the telephone communications. In one conversation, a man the attackers addressed as Jindal told the two at the Jewish center, Nariman House: “This is just a trailer. The real film is yet to come.”
Those attackers eventually killed six of their hostages, including Reb Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka Holtzberg, Reb Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum, Reb Bentzion Chroman, Norma Scvhartzblatt and Yocheved Orpaz.
Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving attacker, told the Indian authorities that the man issuing instructions over the phone had helped train him and his nine fellow attackers in Pakistan, teaching them Hindi, according to news reports. Mr. Qasab was tried and sentenced to death for his role.
S. M. Krishna, India’s foreign minister, praised the police for “doing a magnificent job.”
{NY Times/Matzav.com Newscenter}
