The one group who has claimed responsibility may or may not be involved, since it's not uncommon for groups to try to claim responsibility for acts of terror they did not do, it does make it a scenario where it's not always a given who says they did it, did it. Yet there is also a great deal of evidence that India is home to other Mujahideen groups and as this article in the Times of India points out, Pakistan may not be totally to blame:
The previously unknown group that claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attacks across Mumbai has added to the growing belief that India is confronting a home-grown Islamic militancy.
Recent reports in India state that one of the terrorists has admitted under interrogation that he was trained and sent by Pakistan, how true this will end up being in the days to come we don't yet know. It would not be the first time someone admitted to saying what is want to be heard under interrogation.
There are those who believe that the Indian Mujahideen groups in India are connected to Students Islamic Movement of India. Time pointed out in July of 2008 that:
Finally, the security establishment cannot go on blaming a "foreign hand" for these attacks. The profusion of such attacks within a short time frame cannot have been possible without local recruits. India must now face up to a brood of homegrown Islamist terrorists feeding off popular and growing Muslim resentment toward the purported injustices and atrocities of the Hindu majority. Indeed, the past three terror attacks have been in states ruled by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party — the Hindu right-wing party.
But parties across the political spectrum have contributed to the situation. Some play on the insecurities of the minority Muslim community to maintain an electoral base; others fan anti-Muslim sentiment for similar reasons. At the receiving end of decades of such politicking and social bias, the Muslim community — which forms 13.4% of India's population — remains impoverished and is increasingly alienated. A commission instituted by the ruling Congress Party–led government found Muslims underrepresented in government jobs and faring badly in social indicators like household income and literacy. "When you have a community that has been brutalized, it is inevitable that there will be a pool of ready recruits," says political commentator Manoj Joshi, noting the anti-Muslim riots in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in 1993 and similar ones in Gujarat in 2002.
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For those who ask for proof of Pakistan involvement, read the Times of India story on Sunday cover page. While this is not proof - it is matter of time before the identified people are linked. At some point, it is important for pakistan leaders to act and be part of civilized world rather than keep on asking for proof.
Pakistan’s hand all but nailed
Team TOI
New Delhi: Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday promised to help India unearth the hand behind the Mumbai attack.Well,he won’t have to work hard. For, Indian agencies have managed to lay their hands on evidence which has ripped apart Islamabad’s perennial denial of the involvement of Pakistan’s quasi-state actor in the terror campaign against India.
Sources said a satellite phone recovered from one of the rafts that the ten jihadi desperados used to enter Mumbai on Wednesday night had yielded tell-tale evidence of the direct involvement of the top hierarchy of the ISI-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba in the Mumbai mayhem.
The satellite phone records show that the gang remained in touch with Muzammil alias Yusuf, in charge of Lashkar’s anti-India operations. Muzammil is suspected to have talked to his killer squad even during the bloodbath via other phones. More crucially, Ajmal Amir Kasab, the arrested terrorist, has told his ATS interrogators about the direct interest that Zakiur Rahman, a top-ranking jihadi and one of the founding members of Lashkar, took in the anti-Mumbai plot. Sources said information harvested from the satellite phone, the GPS device that the jihadis used to navigate their way to Mumbai, and the detailed account of Ajmal add up to a solid body of evidence of Lashkar’s direct complicity.
CLINCHING PROOF
Lashkar-e-Taiba put them up at a safe house in Karachi’s Azizabad, arranged for the arms & ammunition and the vessel Al Hussaini in which they sailed to Mumbai
The gang took instructions from Muzammil alias Yusuf, who is in charge of LeT’s anti-India operations
Zakiur Rahman, a top jihadi and founding member of Lashkar, had lectured them, said arrested Ajmal
A satellite phone the 10 jihadis forgot in a boat gave sleuths the ‘clinching’ evidence of the ISI-backed Lashkar’s involvement
Jihadis forgot to destroy sat phone
New Delhi: A satellite phone recovered from the militants has yielded evidence of the direct role of ISI-backed LeT in the terror attacks in Mumbai. The Lashkar leadership was directly involved at each step—from organising a safehouse in Karachi before the gang set out on the mission to arranging for the arms and ammunition and the Pakistani vessel Al Hussaini on which they sailed.
The details also appear to have prompted PM Manmohan Singh to forcefully speak about the Pakistani connection to the crime. Speaking in Islamabad on Saturday, the Pakistani FM confirmed that India, in a clear reference to Singh’s conversation with Pakistani PM Yusuf Raza Gilani on Friday, had spoken of the involvement of Pakistan-based organisations in the savagery.
Sources described the evidence as “clinching’’. “It is so convincing that Pakistan can refuse to take action against LeT only at the cost of the admission that it’s lost control over its territory, or the confirmation of the charge that it connives with terrorists operating from its soil,’’ a source said. The satellite phone was a fortuitous find for the investigating agencies. According to Ajmal, Muzammil had instructed the gang members to destroy the equipment before entering Mumbai. Fortunately for India, the jihadis forgot to carry out the brief, leaving crucial information for sleuths. TNN
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