Tracing the SIMs of the Mumbai raiders


Posted on December 9, 2008  /  1 Comments

Here is an update on the search on how the Mumbai attackers coordinated their murderous activities:

The police official, Javed Shamim, said both men were in Calcutta in October when Mr. Rehman used a dead relative’s photo identification to buy the SIM cards. Mr. Rehman then activated them and either gave or sold them to Mr. Ahmed, Mr. Shamim said. He emphasized that no definitive links to the attacks in Mumbai had been established by the police.

Rakesh Maria, a joint commissioner with the Mumbai police, said Friday that the police had recovered seven cellphones, in addition to three Global Positioning System handsets and one satellite phone, all of which they believed the terrorists had used.

The police have said that 10 terrorists carried out the attacks on luxury hotels and several other locations that began on Nov. 26, and that all of them came from Pakistan. This was the first sign that the attackers may have had help from Indian citizens.

Note that the proper identification documents had been submitted to get the SIMs, but they were of a dead person. No findings yet on who ordered the satphones and whether the bills were paid on those accounts.

1 Comment


  1. Related story in the NYT describes how Apple took the GPS out of the i phone at the request of the Egyptian government.

    Would stripping GPS from mobile devices have hindered the raiders? They had GPS devices. No.