Was Intelligence Bureau tricked by its Pakistani agents?

Four of the five photographs of suspected terrorists recently released by the central Intelligence Bureau (IB) during a terror alert are actually the pictures of some traders and a security guard in Lahore, said Pakistan news agencies.

IB had released five photographs and a copy of the identity card allegedly used by terrorists at a cyber café in Gujarat during a reconnaissance of refineries in the state.

Sources said that the input was provided by IB agents in Pakistan who were paid handsomely for this ‘valuable input’. Sources in the IB, however, said that the agency stands by its input.  They further said that there may be people in Lahore resembling the suspected terrorists who are believed to have entered Indian territory.

The sources in the IB also said that input from other intelligence agencies like the intelligence wing of the army had also confirmed the identity of the five suspected terrorists. Their photographs were distributed to police control rooms in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Delhi.

Parts of Ahmedabad and Jamnagar district were put on high alert following the IB message and the police had launched a hunt for the alleged  militants.  The Pakistani media had reported that four of the ‘suspected terrorists’ whose photos had been released by the IB had turned up at a police station in Lahore after seeing their pictures on Indian TV channels.

The men who were believed by the IB to be Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants are actually residents of Lahore and all of them work at Hafeez Centre on Main Boulevard Gulbarg, the Pakistan agencies said.

Sources in Gujarat police said the tip-off had appeared even more credible because colour photographs of five youths were circulated. “Though their identities were not given, we have to take the terror alert seriously and have to act accordingly,” a source in the police said. A former central IB official said on the condition of anonymity that it would be risky not to take this alert seriously.  “What is the guarantee that they are traders and not terrorists? There are some parameters for issuing such an alert. They are issued only after reliable information is gathered,” he said.