Intelligence reports from Kolkata say that an ISI agent based in Dhaka is behind Monday's twin blasts in Mumbai that killed 50 people.
Mumbai police joint commissioner Dr Satya Pal Singh on Tuesday confirmed that one man, age 30, and a woman and a child hired taxi number MH-02R2007 for two days from Shoppers' Stop in Andheri on Sunday for "sightseeing." This information was gleaned from the driver of the taxi that blew up in front of the Gateway of India. The man got off in the Dhobi Talao area while the woman and the child left the taxi at the Gateway shortly before the blast. The driver, Shiv Narayan Pandey, 55, survived to tell the tale because he had stepped out for refreshments after parking his cab in the area. He has been detained by the crime branch.
Intelligence reports from Kolkata reveal that this woman belongs to the Kashmiri organisation Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of the Faith) and might have carried out the operation.
The Bangladeshi man in question is one Moin Khan, a retired Pakistan Army explosives expert in former East Pakistan. Moin joined the ISI after retirement and settled in Cox Bazaar, Bangladesh, after the war. Moin was asked to carry out the operation by his immediate boss, K.H. Inayat Puri, a resident of 507, Tan Mahal in Bihari Colony, Mohammadpur, Dhaka, central intelligence sources claimed.
A few months ago, a plot to carry out a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai was hatched by the ISI, intelligence sources said. Accordingly, Puri asked Moin to work on the plan. Moin visited Kolkata in the first week of July and then went to Mumbai for reconnaissance. He then returned to Bangladesh.
His next destination was Kathmandu, Nepal. There he met other conspirators at a restaurant called Baneswar on August 19. They handed him a substantial amount of money for the operation, intelligence sources said.
Moin then crossed the Raxaul border into India and headed for Mumbai, intelligence reports said. He was received by a few SIMI activists in Mumbai and was taken to a hideout in the Vashinaka area.
Moin put together the bombs and the timers at the hideout beside the railway tracks, Intelligence Bureau sources said, adding that the explosives were smuggled into Mumbai two weeks ago. The explosives entered India through the Arunachal Pradesh border in a truck loaded with a consignment of fruit. The explosives were off-loaded at a transport company office in Kolkata and then loaded on a truck carrying computer parts to Mumbai last week.
After Moin reached Vashinaka, he assembled the explosives and the timer devices, the intelligence reports said. The explosives were handed over to SIMI activists. Moin headed back to Kolkata on Sunday evening and stayed at a hideout on Lenin Sarani.
To carry out the operation, the help of the Dukhtaran-e-Millat was taken. The young woman belonged to this organisation and she was assigned to plant the bombs in the taxi, the sources said, adding that Moin left for Bangladesh after the news of the blasts reached Kolkata.
Meanwhile, two teams of the Mumbai
police have been sent to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Maharashtra government
is now considering fielding the anti-terrorist squad as soon as possible.