Journalist arrested on Bombay train bombings

However, investigator K.P. Raghuvanshi cautioned that the journalist, Danish Sheikh, who works as an editor for the Urdu Times, an Urdu language newspaper, is not suspected of playing any direct role in the July 11 bombings of Bombay’s crowded commuter rail network, that killed at least 207 people.

Rather, Raghuvanshi said he is suspected of assisting Students Islamic Movement of India, a banned Islamic group that authorities say may have played a role in the series of seven bomb blasts, along with militants based in Pakistan.

Documents linking Sheikh with SIMI, as the group is known, were allegedly seized from his home, Raghuvanshi said.

Later Monday, when Sheikh appeared before a Bombay court, public prosecutor B.F. Heere told the court that the suspect had traveled to Iran earlier this year, and that “more than a hundred jihadi books were also found and seized from his residence.”

Heere said the literature included 25 copies of a book by SIMI.

“We suspect he sold and distributed the books on jihad in Bombay,” the prosecutor said. “He was an active SIMI member and was fluent in English, Hindi, Persian, Arabic and Urdu.”

Arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Sheikh was ordered held until Aug. 14.

Urdu is the language spoken by South Asia’s Muslims, about 140 million of whom live in India, a country with a population of more than a billion people.

Sheikh is the 10th person arrested since the bombings. Hundreds of people have also been detained across India.

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