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DE RUEHBI #1996/01 3130303
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MUMBAI 001996 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT. FOR S, P, C, S/P, SCT, SCA, INR 
S/CT FOR CRUMPTON, PALMER, ALLEGRA; 
NSC FOR MILLARD/MAHONEY 
DNI FOR NEGROGPONTE/POWELL/SHEDD 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  11/8/2016 
TAGS: PREL PTER PGOV KISL ASEC CASC IN
SUBJECT: POLICE BELIEVE MUSLIMS TARGETED MUSLIMS IN MALEGAON 
BOMBINGS 
 
REF: A: MUMBAI 1653;   B: MUMBAI 890 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Michael S. Owen, Consul General, Consulate 
General Mumbai, State. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
Summary and Comment 
 
------------------- 
 
 
 
¶1.  (C) Maharashtra police are now convinced that Muslim 
extremists purposefully targeted other Muslims in the September 
8 bombings in Malegaon that killed 31 persons and injured over 
¶200.  The police have told us that Muslim extremists hoped to 
inflame communal passions in a city with a history of 
Hindu/Muslim violence.  The police doubt that Hindu extremists 
had the capability to perpetrate the attacks, and have shared 
their reasons for believing so with us.  Investigators also 
believe that the Malegaon bombings are probably linked to the 
Mumbai train bombings, yet have not been specific in both their 
public and private statements.  Not all of our contacts, 
particularly those in the Muslim community, are willing to 
believe that Muslims purposely targeted other Muslims in 
Malegaon, yet we have no reason at this time to question our 
police contacts' professional judgment.  In any case the 
investigations into the Malegaon bombings shed more light on 
Muslim extremism in western India, and demonstrate that groups 
such as LeT and SIMI are firmly entrenched in the region and are 
seeking to attack the Indian heartland's religious harmony and 
social fabric.  End summary and comment. 
 
 
 
Six Muslim Men Arrested 
 
----------------------- 
 
 
 
¶2. (U) In recent days the Maharashtra police have arrested six 
Muslim men in connection with the September 8 explosions in 
Malegaon that killed 31 persons and injured over 200, nearly all 
Muslims (ref A).  Police sources told the media that they 
arrested Shabbir Masiullah, aka Shabbir Batterywalla, 34, Noorul 
Hooda Samsudoha, 23, Salman Farsi, 35, and Farogh Makhdomi, 33, 
Raees Ahmed, no age given, and Masiullah's brother-in-law, whose 
name was not given.  Some of the men are from Malegaon, others 
from the Mumbai area.  Police believe that Masiullah was the 
ring leader of the plot. 
 
 
 
Malegaon Linked to Mumbai Train Bombings? 
 
----------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶3. (C) J.J. Singh, who until November 3 was second in command in 
the state's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), told Pol/Econ Chief on 
November 2 that the police also had evidence linking the three 
men to the Mumbai bombings.  He would not be more specific. 
Later, however, the local media quoted ATS chief K.P. 
Raghuvanshi as only saying that the police only believed that "a 
distant but definite link" existed between the two bombings.  In 
any case both Raghuvanshi and P.S. Pasricha, the state's 
Director General of police, told the media that some of the men 
were either linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and/or the banned 
violent extremist Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), 
the two groups they believe are responsible for the Mumbai train 
bombings. 
 
 
MUMBAI 00001996  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
 
Muslim Groups Clearly Behind Malegaon Bombings, Police Say 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
 
 
¶4. (U) BACKGROUND: Several bombs exploded nearly simultaneously 
on the afternoon of September 8 near a mosque and a Muslim 
cemetery in a heavily visited market area of Malegaon.  Police 
believe that the bombings were timed to hit Muslims leaving 
Friday prayers on the eve of an important Muslim holy night. 
About 70 percent of Malegaon's population is Muslim, and the 
city has a history of communal tensions.  END BACKGROUND. 
 
 
 
¶5. (C) Both publicly and privately, state police express their 
conviction that Muslim extremists are behind the bombings. 
Singh told us that the police have evidence that the 
perpetrators of the bombings were Muslims who intentionally 
targeted other Muslims.  Malegaon was a hub for Muslim 
extremists and provided ideal conditions to plan and execute the 
bombings, Singh said.  Extremist Hindu groups did not have 
skills or background to prepare such explosives, he told us. 
The potent military explosive RDX was used in the bombings, he 
pointed out.  While extremist Muslim groups are commonly 
apprehended with the explosive, Singh said, similarly extremist 
Hindu groups are not.  The Muslim perpetrators purposely used 
small amounts of the RDX explosive to limit the damage caused by 
the blasts.  Had they wanted to, Singh argued, they could have 
caused far more causalities by using a larger dosage of RDX, but 
they did not do so because their aim was just to ignite 
religious tensions, not to kill as many people as possible. 
Most of the persons died in the stampede that following the 
bombings, Singh claimed, and not in the bombings themselves. 
 
 
 
Muslims Question Investigators' Claims 
 
-------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Most of our Muslim contacts are taking a "wait and 
see" attitude towards the Malegaon bombings, and a few admit 
that Muslims were probably responsible.  Yet some of our Muslim 
contacts - ignoring current events in Iraq -- vehemently deny 
that Muslims could have perpetrated attacks against other 
Muslims in an attempt to inflame communal passions.  Zaheer 
Rizvi, a Congress politician and Secretary of the All India 
Ulema Council, told us that most Muslims have little trust in 
police pronouncements in both the Mumbai and Malegaon 
investigations.  Police generally have an anti-Muslim bias and 
were quick to jump to conclusions that Muslims are responsible 
for the Malegaon bombings because they have devoted too little 
time to pursing Hindu extremists, Rizvi said.  He said he 
suspects that fringe groups associated with the RSS were 
probably behind the Malegaon bombings. 
 
 
 
¶7. (SBU) In a separate conversation, India Today correspondent 
Uday Mahurkar also doubted that Muslims were behind the group. 
Mahurkar's comments are noteworthy because he regularly argues 
that Muslim extremism in western India is growing and that the 
police still underestimate its reach and its threat.  In his 
view, Hindu groups probably carried out the bombings as revenge 
for the Mumbai train explosions.  Hindu extremist groups were 
developing the expertise to carry out such bombings, he said. 
As an example he cited the case of Naresh Rajkondwar, a leading 
member of the fundamentalist Hindu group Bajrang Dal in whose 
home a bomb exploded earlier this year and killed two people. 
 
MUMBAI 00001996  003 OF 003 
 
 
He also doubted that LeT would carry out such an operation in 
Malegaon, a city where it most likely has numerous sleeper 
cells.  (Note:  Police seized explosives and weapons in Malegaon 
earlier this year -- see ref B -- and arrested several Muslims 
who they suspect are LeT operatives.  End note).  LeT would not 
do anything to attract more attention to itself in a city where 
it has numerous operatives and significant support, Mahurkar 
argued.  Mahurkar isn't alone in his views.  Several of Delhi 
PolCounselor's interlocutors during a recent visit to Mumbai 
felt that Malegaon might have been a Hindu extremist retaliation 
for the Mumbai bombings.  They attributed the explosion in 
Rajkondwar's home to experiments with explosives that went 
haywire. 
 
 
 
Comment 
 
------- 
 
 
 
¶8. (C)  With the exception of some of our Muslim contacts, most 
of our interlocutors in Mumbai do not question the police 
assertion that Muslims purposely targeted other Muslims on 
September 8 in Malegaon.  We, too, have no reason to believe 
that Pasricha, Raghuvanshi and Singh are communally biased, and 
hence we are not ready to doubt their professional judgment. 
Based on our observations of the Mumbai train bombings 
investigations, however, we urge caution whenever Maharashtra 
police officers claim, publicly or privately, that they have 
solid evidence in either of the two investigations. 
Disturbingly, it now seems beyond question that groups such as 
LeT and SIMI have established an effective series of cells, 
equipped with weapons and explosives, in Muslim communities 
throughout western India.  There also exists nearly universal 
consensus among our Mumbai contacts, including those in the 
Muslim community, that LeT and SIMI are responsible for the 
Mumbai bombings.  Yet investigators appear to be struggling to 
conclusively link individual operators of these groups to both 
the Mumbai and Malegaon bombings.  The investigation into the 
Mumbai bombings, for example, has made little headway in recent 
weeks, and the police are now visibly more cautious when 
commenting about the investigation to the media.  But we are not 
ready to believe the arguments of some of our Muslim 
interlocutors that a lack of a smoking gun should cast doubt on 
the general direction of the investigations.  Even if it turns 
out that Muslims did not plan the Malegaon bombings, the 
investigations show that Muslim extremism is now firmly 
entrenched in western India, and working to sow the seeds of 
religious tension in the Indian heartland.  End comment. 
OWEN