Mumbai Attackers Called Part of Larger Band of Recruits

The Mumbai police said Tuesday that the 10 men who carried out the terrorist attacks here last month were among 30 recruits selected for suicide missions, and that the whereabouts of the other 20 were unknown.

 

It was the first time the Indian police disclosed the larger number of recruits, all of whom belonged to the Pakistani militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. The police said there was no reason to believe that the other 20 were in India, but expressed concern about that possibility.

“Another 20 were ready to die,” Deven Bharti, a Mumbai Police deputy commissioner, said in an interview. “This is the very disturbing part of it.”

The Indian police have consistently maintained that only 10 gunmen participated in the attacks in Mumbai last month that left 171 people dead, including nine of the gunmen, and raised tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan to the highest level in years.

Mr. Bharti said the information about the other 20 recruits came from the sole surviving attacker, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, who was arrested during the attacks and has been in police custody ever since.

Mr. Bharti also said that according to Mr. Kasab, the 30 recruits were provided with highly specialized training, including marine combat skills.

Once Mr. Kasab and his nine fellow attackers were selected by Lashkar leaders, they were sequestered in a house for three months, the deputy commissioner said. There they were divided into two-man teams, each team assigned a different target in Mumbai to attack — information they were forbidden to share with one another.