Alleged Mumbai plotter was planning new attack: Police

Suspected militant was arrested after India received tip-off, police say Ansari was travelling on Pakistani passport.

NEW DELHI: An alleged key plotter in the 2008 Mumbai attacks now in Indian police custody had been living in Saudi Arabia for two years and was "talent-spotting" for another "massive attack", an Indian police official said on Tuesday.

Sayeed Zabiuddin Ansari, also known as Abu Hamza and Abu Jindal, was arrested at Delhi airport on June 21 on his arrival from Saudi Arabia. Police revealed his arrest only on Monday, after interrogating him for five days about the three-day rampage in the financial hub of Mumbai that killed 166 people.

Police said Ansari helped coordinate the attack by 10 members of Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group from a "control room" in Karachi and also helped to train the gunmen.

Until his arrest, Ansari had been living in Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport, an official at New Delhi's anti-terrorist police unit told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

During his stay in the desert kingdom, Ansari sought to recruit volunteers for another Mumbai-style attack, the official said. He would not say where the planned attack was to have taken place or even whether India was the target.

Asked how India had learned of Ansari's whereabouts, the official said: "We had inputs and we acted on them." He would not elaborate, but some Indian media, quoting sources, said the United States, which has sought to deepen its counter-terrorism relationship with India, had provided the information.

The Hindu newspaper, quoting government sources, said the arrest came after months of painstaking diplomatic talks between Riyadh, Washington and New Delhi. Indian officials had travelled to Saudi Arabia to lobby for him to be handed over, it said.

It was not clear whether Ansari was in Saudi custody before his deportation from the kingdom or even how he had travelled to Delhi. One newspaper said the Saudis had asked India to send a plane to take him home.

The Saudi embassy in Delhi could not be reached for comment.

Indian media, quoting intelligence and police sources, said Ansari had admitted during interrogation to training the attackers, teaching them Hindi and speaking to them by telephone during the attack. He said Hafiz Saeed, the suspected mastermind of the attack and founder of the LeT, was present in the Karachi "control room", media quoted the sources as saying.

Washington has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to Saeed's arrest.

Impact on Pak-India ties

India's Foreign Ministry and analysts played down any suggestions that Ansari's arrest could damage diplomatic talks with Pakistan on a host of disputed issues.

"This arrest is unlikely to have a negative impact on talks between India and Pakistan unless further investigations reveal that the arrested person was used by Pakistan to plot another terror attack on India," said B Raman, a former top Indian intelligence official and now security analyst.

The Mumbai attacks heightened tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since 1947, and have continued to cast a pall over fragile relations ever since.

Ten militants arrived on the Mumbai shoreline in a dinghy on November 26, 2008, before splitting into four groups and embarking on a killing spree. They held off elite commandos for up to 60 hours in two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre in the city. The only attacker to survive was sentenced to death in 2010.

A voice believed to belong to Ansari was recorded talking to the gunmen attacking the Jewish centre. He is reported to have told the attackers to convey to the media that the "attack was a trailer and the entire movie was yet to come".