Terror in 'cells' of terrorists

MUMBAI: Terror was not only in the blood but also in the 'cells' of terrorists who last week executed the worst-ever attack on India, it has emerged.
 
Notwithstanding stringent rules, the terrorists who carried out the rampage in Mumbai procured with ease five cell phone SIM cards -- three of which were being purchased from Delhi's Karol Bagh area while the rest from West Bengal's 24 Parganas district, interrogation records of the only arrested ultra have revealed.
 
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman has told interrogators that right through the fighting, the Lashkar-e-Taiba headquarters in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir remained ver much in touch with them, frequently calling their mobile phones via a voice-over- Internet service.
 
The government last year imposed strict rules on the issuance of SIM cards by cellular services operators following the Mecca Masjid blasts in Hyderabad in May, where terrorists had copiously used cell phones to trigger improvised explosive devises and send text messages to their handlers in Pakistan.

Not only mobiles and SIM cards, Iman has told his investigators that he was part of a group of ten which also had one state-of-the art global positioning system (GPS) set via which they were conveying the scene outside the Taj hotel (as shown live on TV channels) to their LeT bosses in PoK.
 
And, inside the famous hotel they were communicating among themselves on cell phones which they had snatched from people who were taken hostage, he has revealed.
 
In fact, the group, which was to leave for Mumbai on September 15, was ordered to hold back for reasons "unknown" to Iman. They finally headed for their destination late on November 22 after getting the green signal, each armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition and grenades.
 
But before the operation, they undertook six months of training in marine combat and navigation skills in PoK and Punjab, and were also shown detailed maps of the metropolis as well as given films of the targets they were to hit by LeT's military commander Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, it has emerged.
 
On-route Mumbai, the group hijacked a fishing trawler near Indian coastal waters and on reaching the city coastline, they rowed the last few nautical miles to Budhwar Park in a small boat. And, from there, they dispersed to their targets by taxis, Iman has said.
 
Iman, the son of a roadside vendor in Rawalpindi, has claimed before the police that all the logistics were provided to them by one of Dawood Ibrahim's henchmen based in Colaba and popularly known as a "diesel smuggler" to carry out the attacks which left over 180 people, dead.
 
The terrorist has admitted that it was one of his fellow group members Mohammed Ismail who killed Mumbai Anti- Terror Squad chief Hemant Karkare and two other officers -- Additional Police Commissioner Ashok Kamte and encounter cop
Vijay Salaskar.
 
The investigators are now probing how the terrorists got the mobile SIM cards and who filmed the entry and exit gates of Mumbai's Victoria Terminus station, Taj and Trident hotels and the Nariman house.