Journalist wrongly held for Israel attack: Family

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A journalist arrested in connection with a bomb attack last month targeting an Israeli diplomat had links to Iran, but played no role in the attack, his son and fellow professionals said on Friday.

Syed Mohammed Kazmi, a 50-year-old veteran reporter, was arrested by the police in New Delhi on Tuesday and was later remanded in custody for 20 days.

"It is true that my father worked for Iran's new agency IRNA as a freelance journalist. He was in touch with officials of the news agency but that does not make him a terrorist," his son Shauzab Kazmi told reporters in New Delhi.

"My father is a journalist with impeccable credentials. He has been targeted by the police and there is no evidence against him," he said at a meeting at the Press Club of India.

A 42-year-old Israeli diplomat, the wife of the defence attache at the embassy, was badly wounded in an attack in central New Delhi on February 13 when a motorcyclist attached a bomb to the back of her vehicle.

Israel immediately accused Iran of carrying out the car bombing which came on the same day as another attempted attack on an Israeli embassy car in Georgia.

Tehran has denied any involvement in the alleged plots, which includes another in Bangkok where three Iranians have been arrested on suspicion of planning attacks on Israeli diplomats.

Several journalists joined Kazmi's family members to protest the arrest, which veteran Indian columnist Saeed Naqvi termed ‘a random act by the police to cow down journalists’.

"Syed Mohammed had his biases, but he certainly was not anti-Jew. He is an honourable reporter," he said.

Kazmi, who is fluent in English, Hindi, Urdu and Persian languages, also worked for Indian state TV network Doordarshan and occasionally did shows for Iranian radio.

A senior Delhi police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the newsreader and writer was ‘under sustained interrogation and we hope to have some clarity soon’.

Police suspect that ‘foreign nationals’ carried out the strike on the embassy car, but they have not said from where they came.

Investigators probing the case ‘at this point of time cannot say for sure who are these foreign nationals’, the senior police source said.