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Mumbai bombers not in India: police

Indian police said yesterday that the Mumbai train bombers had probably left the country after the number of arrests in the inquiry rose to six.

Jamir Sheikh, 31, and Sohail Sheikh, 38, were arrested late on Tuesday after being questioned for several days over the blasts that killed 183 and injured more than 800. They were being probed for providing "support" to the bombers.

Jamir Sheikh, who ran a key-cutting shop in Mumbai, and Sohail Sheikh, a chemical engineer, were allegedly trained on how to make bombs in Pakistan between 2004 and last year additional commissioner of police Jayjit Singh said.

The men were being questioned in Mumbai and the DNA newspaper said they had allegedly confessed to being members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the pro-Pakistan militant group fighting Indian control in Kashmir.

Police have said that the seven coordinated blasts that ripped through packed first-class train carriages on July 11 bore the hallmarks of Lashkar-e-Taiba but have stopped short of directly blaming the group.

"We don't have conclusive proof but we believe it's true that the people who have done it are out of the country," Singh said.

Indian media said the two arrested men were allegedly part of the same militant cell led by Tanvir Ansari, a doctor, who has been accused of conspiracy and was under suspicion of having trained abroad in handling arms, ammunition and making bombs. He was arrested earlier this week.

The two men were suspected to have visited Pakistan through Iran and went on a 28-day training camp to learn how to handle sophisticated weapons and manufacture bombs, the Press Trust of India said, quoting unnamed sources.

Sohail Sheikh's family, at their home in the western Indian city of Pune, denied he was linked to terrorism and told reporters he had travelled to Iran to investigate the dry fruit business.

"He was showing me how to do my exercises when we first heard about the blasts. How can he have had anything to do with them?" his mother Hazra told the Hindustan Times.

Jamir Sheikh, a keen soccer player and married with a young son, Osama, had links with a banned Islamic militant group. His mother Raeesa Begum told the newspaper she had tried to make him break ties with the group.

Meanwhile, two soldiers and two policemen have been detained for their alleged links to an Islamic militant group blamed for numerous bombings in India, including Mumbai, officials said yesterday.

The two soldiers were picked up in the town of Jammu, and are being questioned about their suspected ties to a field commander of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, an army spokesman said.

If the allegations are true, it would be the first reported infiltration of the Indian military by any of the dozen or more Islamic militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

The two state policemen -- identified as Mohammad Sikander and Kabir Ahmed -- were also detained in Kashmir over alleged links with the militants, said Gopal Sharma, the state's police chief, adding that there have been previous cases of police working with militants.

The names of all the soldiers and police came up in recent interrogations of alleged Lashkar militants, he said.

An Indian intelligence official in Jammu said the soldiers were suspected of transporting arms for the militants and buying SIM cards for the insurgents' mobile phones.
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