By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 17, 2008

NEW DELHI, Aug. 16 -- Indian police officials said Saturday that they have arrested 10 suspects in the series of bomb blasts that killed 56 people in the city of Ahmedabad last month.

Senior police officials in the western state of Gujarat, where Ahmedabad is located, said the accused are associated with a banned group, Students Islamic Movement of India.

"Arrests have been made under the charges of waging war against the state and also for murder, both unbailable offenses," said P.C. Pande, director general of police in Gujarat.

Pande said the Indian Mujahideen, a little-known group that earlier asserted responsibility for the attacks, is another name for the banned student group.

Two of the people who were arrested, Mufti Abu Bashir and an unnamed employee of a software company, had "masterminded" the plans to carry out the blasts, Pande said.

Police also gave details of a homegrown terrorism network in at least six Indian states that held secret meetings and training camps in various cities between last December and April 2008.

The student group was banned in 2001 for unlawful and secessionist activities, and its members its members have been named in several bombing probes in the past few years.

Ten days ago, a government tribunal lifted the ban on the group, saying there was no evidence it was a terrorist organization. The Home Ministry, however, successfully appealed to the Supreme Court to retain the ban until it could present fresh evidence at the tribunal.