Journalist arrested in Mumbai blast investigation

MUMBAI - Indian police have arrested two more people, including a journalist, for suspected links with a banned Islamic group believed to be behind the Mumbai bombings that killed 186 people, a senior officer said.

Indian security officials say the blasts were carried out by local Muslims - possibly members or former members of the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) - who had links to Pakistan, with the Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba a prime suspect.

SIMI was banned in 2001 for allegedly trying to stir up religious unrest in India over the US-led war on terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

"We recovered objectionable SIMI-published literature from the two persons," said K.P. Raghuvanshi, chief of the city's anti-terrorism squad. "The quantity suggests it was for distribution."

The latest arrest, which includes a journalist working for an Urdu-language daily, takes the number of people in police custody to ten in an investigation that has spread across several states, and into neighbouring Nepal.

All the arrested, who include a doctor, a chemical engineer and a computer software professional, are Indian Muslims.

"All those arrested so far have some links with banned groups like SIMI and Lashkar," Raghuvanshi said.

The Pakistani government and Lashkar have denied any role in the attacks and Islamabad has offered to help India investigate the bombings.

In response, New Delhi has challenged Islamabad to arrest Lashkar's leaders as well as an underworld crime boss blamed for 1993 bombings in Mumbai.

Raghuvanshi said investigations have revealed that some of the accused received 25,000 riyals ($10,936 dollars) from associates in Saudi Arabia four to five days before the July 11 blasts.

"We have seized that money and also recovered another 12,000 riyals sent on July 14," he said. "This is circumstantial evidence that we have and we have other leads we are following."

On Monday police revised the death toll from the blasts to 186 people from 182.

- REUTERS