Mumbai - Arrested Suspect Is Undercover Cop

By Cernig

This is just weird.

One of the two men arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by gunmen in the Mumbai attacks is a counter-insurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission, security officials said Saturday.

The officials in Indian Kashmir demanded that police in Calcutta, where the suspect is being held, arrange for his quick release.

Only two people have been arrested since the end of the bloody siege that killed 171 people. Indian officials have blamed the attacks on Pakistani extremists.

A senior police official in Indian Kashmir said one of them, Mukhtar Ahmed, is part of a semiofficial counter-insurgency network whose members are usually former Kashmiri militants.

Calcutta police have been told Ahmed is "our man and it's now up to them how to facilitate his release," said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information.

The Calcutta police denied that. "This is not true," said Rajeev Kumar, a top Calcutta police official.

Words like "semiofficial" ring alarm bells as does the Calcutta police' denial of the story. If some kind of rogue or unsanctioned undercover operation went wrong and aided the Mumbai attackers in any way, then India's current dissatisfaction with its government and counter-terror officials is going to kick into overdrive.

Comments

[anderson]

Cernig,

Think of that British agent (MI5?) who infiltrated the IRA, and then proceeded to actually carry out terrorist activities, including bombings (Omagh) to ensure their bona fides with the IRA and not to blow their cover. Sound familiar?

Even though the agent came forward and identified his role, backed up with recorded conversations with superiors, at the time, and I think even today, the British government denies any such activity.