Agencies investigating the Varanasi blast have found out that members from the Azamgarh module of Indian Mujahideen (IM) had planned and executed the blast but had technological and logistical support from outfit’s other modules.
A senior police officer said, “The Pune module is headquarters for media operations. All emails sent after several terror attacks carried out by the outfit were sent by experts who are part of the Pune module. This time too the email sent was by some member of the Pune module. They had carried out a recce in the areas and then selected the location where the wi-fi connection was misused to send the email.”
“Once the connection is misused, it becomes impossible to further detect or find out who was the person who misused it and sent the email,” he added.
Members of the Pune module are said to have conducted the recce in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane a month ago before sending the email.
Another officer said, “Not only Pune but the tech control of the outfit is now majorly being controlled from Mumbai and it is suspected that many members could be from the city. The tech brain of the outfit and former SIMI activist, software engineer Abdul Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqeer, who was also suspected to be the outfit’s leader, is still at large.” He added, “The media wing was earlier headed by Asgar Peerbhoy who is lodged in Sabarmati jail, but at present the leadership of this wing is not known and it is suspected some other person has taken over.”
Officials from the Mumbai crime branch recently visited Sabarmati jail to question Peerbhoy but the questioning did not yield any results.
Also, intelligence agencies and the police have come to know that the number of trained members in IM, which was earlier around 50, has grown to around 90. All members are suspected to have been trained in PoK and are capable of launching high-intensity attacks across the country.
