India seeks details from Madrid

Apart from the fact that they hold Indian passports, the Indian Embassy in Spain has received few details on Vinay Kohly and Suresh Kumar wh...

Apart from the fact that they hold Indian passports, the Indian Embassy in Spain has received few details on Vinay Kohly and Suresh Kumar who were arrested on Saturday for alleged involvement in the Madrid blasts.

‘‘All we have been conveyed is that the two persons hold Indian passports. We have sought more information, but today being the first working day after the elections in Spain, the Interior Ministry is extremely busy,’’ the Charge d’Affaires at the Indian Embassy R.K. Tyagi told The Indian Express from Madrid. Confirmed information on Kohly and Kumar, he added, would be available only after the particulars of their passport were passed on to the Embassy by the Spanish Interior Ministry. ‘‘We are awaiting the information. Only after that comes can we be certain about anything.’’

While the MEA indicated today that India would try for consular access once the identity of the two Indians had been established, Tyagi said this could prove to be a tricky affair given the stringent provisions of the anti-terrorist law recently enacted in Spain.

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‘‘The law does not provide for any sort of consular access. In fact, it is clear that the only access that the accused, booked under this law, can get is to a lawyer and that too after the approval of the court. So that is where matters stand, but first we will get all the details from the authorities here,’’ he said.

Tyagi, however, was quick to add that the two Indians were not being seen as ‘‘accomplices’’ of those who had planned and executed the blasts.

‘‘They (the two Indians) had apparently supplied the SIM cards or some special mobile phone cards which were found in a bag recovered from one of the trains on which the blasts occurred. So they are not yet being looked upon as accomplices.’’

Intelligence agencies here are also clueless about the antecedents of the two Indians. Official sources said they would need more details, with some revealing that an informal check had brought up no details on Kohly while there were more than 30,000 persons with passports bearing the name Suresh Kumar.

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Meanwhile, the MEA Spokesperson here said: ‘‘We would like to express our solidarity with the investigations. The Government of India and the Indian diaspora in Spain, which is a law-abiding and prosperous community, disapprove of illegal immigration and underline the importance of all Indians in Spain respecting the law of the land.’’

Spanish authorities had announced on Saturday the arrest of three Moroccans and two Indians in connection with Thursday’s bomb blasts on four trains, which left 200 people dead and 1,500 injured.