I’ve been trying to make sense of the progress of the Mumbai blasts investigation, and it’s not easy going. The latest news is the arrest of a local Mumbai man named Tanvir Ansari. Ansari is a traditional Muslim healer who practices ‘Unani’ healing in Mumbai. The Mumbai Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) claims he went to Pakistan in 2004, where he received training in bomb-making. He also has a criminal record — for an earlier arrest for possessing an AK-47 from some years ago.

Ansari’s arrest has led to the arrest of two associates, Suhail Sheikh and Jameer Ahmed. Like Ansari, Jameer Ahmed seems pretty unassuming: he owns a key shop in Mumbai city. Suhail Sheikh lives in Pune; I haven’t been able to find out what he does for a living.

Last week, the arrest of a man in Kenya is looking a little confusing. The man arrested there is not Said Abdul Karim (‘Tunda’), but a British national of Nigerian descent named Ismoila Olatunde Rufai. Rufai is still wanted by Kenyan police on suspicion of involvement with terrorism, but he’s not the person the Indian government was looking for. ‘Tunda’ worked for Dawood Ibrahim, and is known to have lost a hand from a bomb-making accident. Ismoila Rufai has no connection to ‘D’, and has both hands intact.

The three men arrested earlier have similarly complex identities (one of them had even worked as a police informer!). Two are Bihari villagers, and one lives in Navi Mumbai (New Bombay). Though one of the three has stated that he received training at an LeT camp in Pakistan, police are suggesting their main contacts are in Nepal and Bangladesh, and only “indirectly” in Pakistan. (This last point is somewhat vague in the news reports I’ve read.)

For columnist Rudroneel Ghosh at India Enews, the pattern of arrests thus far just doesn’t add up, which could mean one of two things:

The latest arrest of Dr. Tanvir Ansari in connection with the Mumbai serial blasts is making the investigations look weirder by the day. The four arrested so far seem like ordinary Joes who like most people in the country are trying to scrape out a living. Unless they are such highly trained sleeper agents that even Ian Fleming would be proud of, I really donÂ’t see where all of this is going. The Anti Terror Squad of the Mumbai Police keeps saying exactly that but doesnÂ’t yet have any proof to that effect. They keep saying that we know that they are LeT operatives and have been trained in Pakistan, but doesnÂ’t really have any hard evidence to prove that in court although they claim that one of the arrested has had a criminal record and had been previously charged for possessing an AK-47. But even so this personÂ’s specific role in the blasts isnÂ’t clear. Now, there could be two distinct possibilities. The Mumbai police and the ATS squad is right and these men are leading extraordinary double lives or they are wrong and these people are the innocent victims of a witch-hunt that is desperately seeking to somehow nail someone to take the heat off themselves. Now if it is the former then we have reasons to panic. For this would be the new face of terrorism; educated, respected members of the society who are sleeper agents for terrorist outfits. These people could be your next-door neighbours and you could know them for years. These could be your trusted friends and colleagues and yet you wouldnÂ’t know the truth about them. . . .

Now donÂ’t get me wrong, both the above two possibilities exist, but I am not at all convinced by he statements that the ATS investigators have made so far. They have absolutely nothing concrete, almost nothing to go forward on. Their comments and suspicions are at best vague and their investigation method seems to be lackluster to say the least. Whatever it is that they are doing or have planned for the future, this is not the way to respond to terrorism. (link)

While I would give investigators a little more credit and recommend patience in the investigation, I think Ghosh has a point when he argues that it’s all looking a little vague right now. It might also be said that if it turns out that Ansari is the ringleader, it wouldn’t be the first time that an educated, unassuming local person turned out to be a terrorist (the London bombers of 7/7 fit this profile). If readers have more or better information on who the arrested individuals are and how or whether this smells like a coherent conspiracy, I would be curious to hear it.