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Indian Police Arrest 2 In Mumbai Investigation

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The Associated Press

Published: December 7, 2008

SRINAGAR, India - One of the two Indian men arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen in the Mumbai attacks was a counterinsurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission, security officials said Saturday, demanding his release.

The arrests, announced in the eastern city of Calcutta, were the first since the siege ended. But what was touted as a rare success for India's beleaguered law enforcement agencies quickly turned sour as police in two Indian regions squared off against one another.

Senior police officers in Indian Kashmir, which has been at the heart of tensions between India and Pakistan, demanded the release of the officer, Mukhtar Ahmed, saying he was one of their own and had been involved in infiltrating Kashmiri militant groups.
Indian authorities think the banned Pakistani-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has links to Kashmir, trained the gunmen and plotted the attacks that left 174 people dead after a three-day rampage through Mumbai that began Nov. 26.

The implications of Ahmed's involvement - that Indian agents may have been in touch with the militants and perhaps supplied the SIM cards used in the attacks - added to the growing list of questions over India's ill-trained security forces.

Earlier Saturday, Calcutta police announced the arrests of Ahmed and Tauseef Rahman, who allegedly bought SIM cards by using fake documents, including ID cards of dead people. This would have allowed the terrorists to use cell phones with SIM cards that had no ties to their identities.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS

•A hoax caller claiming to be India's foreign minister threatened Pakistan's president with war during the final hours of the Mumbai attacks, prompting Pakistan to put its air force on its highest alert for nearly 24 hours.

•Pakistan understands it must take quick action against any terrorists connected to the Mumbai attacks that are living in the country, U.S. Sen. John McCain said Saturday after meeting with Pakistani leaders during a regional tour as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

A wire report

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