All the men involved in the Mumbai terror attack were Pakistani nationals and no locals were involved, arrested militant Ajmal Kasab told Mumbai's Anti Terrorism Squad.
However, Kasab said vaguely during his interrogation that some members of a local module helped with logistics.
An ATS officer told rediff.com that they are still probing the local angle as it could help crack the case easily. The Mumbai police however feel that the module that provided logistics may not necessarily have been from Mumbai or Maharashtra. "We are not ruling out help being provided by a Gujarat module and have sought the assistance of the state IB," the officer said.
"Kasab comes across as a very cool person during his interrogation and there is a clear indication that he was determined to do the job. He has no regrets whatsoever and says that he carried out the orders of his leader based in Pakistan," the officer added.
Kasab also cleared the confusion regarding the number of men involved. During interrogation, an official said that Kasab made it clear that 24 men were trained in Pakistan. Although the ATS maintains that there were only ten men involved in the final attack, the IB says with conviction that the number of people who carried out the Mumbai operation was 24. The IB says that ten persons were picked up for the main operation while the remaining persons were specifically directed to create a base for the operation at the Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House.
Another fact that came to light during the interrogation is that the core team of ten members who were handpicked for the final operation were sent to Mumbai four months before the actual event. They stayed in the city for a week and studied their targets. They then left for Pakistan and waited for D-day. Kasab further revealed that a core team had come to Mumbai four days before the operation and checked into the hotels where they began setting up base. He also said that some of his team members had made fake ID cards and had used them to check in to the hotels and also Nariman House.
Kasab said the entire operation was planned in Karachi. He added they were asked not to interact with other team members and were not even told their names. Each one had a specific job on hand and they went about executing it, he told interrogators.