Two days after Spain’s police made public the arrest of eight persons with links to radical outfits in Pakistan and the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, they have backtracked on their claim.

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The Mumbai police, too, have expressed doubts over their statement.

There is little possibility of the fake documents and identity cards seized from the terrorists being prepared in Spain, sources in the Mumbai police said. The quality of the cards is poor.

It indicates that these have been made by someone who does not know the English language. Also, their physical condition is such that they must have been prepared in a hurry and on very ordinary computers, they said.

“I-cards were seized from all the 10 terrorists (involved in the 26/11 attack), including Ajmal Kasab, and a look at them gives a clear indication that the cards were duplicate. They had the name of a Bangalore-based college. The I-card recovered from Kasab had his name as Sameer Chaudhary, while his father’s name was mentioned as Dinaish Choudhry. You can clearly see the spelling mistakes in the surname,” a police officer pointed out.Interestingly, there has been no communication from the authorities in Spain.

“Looking at the seriousness of the issue, we were expecting some communication, but the ministry of external affairs has yet not received any correspondence ,” the officer said.  Meanwhile, in a communication to the CBI through the Interpol, the Spanish authorities have now claimed that investigations so far do not indicate links of the arrested persons with the Mumbai attack. They have, however, maintained that they eight belong to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and had handlers based in Pakistan.

The Indian government had earlier sought details of the accused from the Spanish government shortly after the arrest of the accused on Wednesday. The Spanish police, in their earlier statement, had also claimed that the gang was also supplying documents to erstwhile Sri Lankan terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The module was led by a Pakistani citizen living in Thailand. He directed the cells in Europe which decided the features of the passports.

With inputs from Pradip R Sagar & Aditya Kaul in Delhi