Pakistani vessel MV Al Husseni was used by the 10 Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists before they shifted to an Indian fishing boat to reach Mumbai, suggest investigators probing the terror carnage.
During interrogation, Ajmal Amin Kasab, a militant arrested during the siege, said that they had boarded Al Husseni docked at a distance from Karachi port and were to be dropped near Mumbai waters, official sources said.
Kasab, who hails from a poor family of Multan, Punjab, told investigators that they made a last minute decision to shift a Indian vessel to avoid detection by Indian Navy and Coast Guard.
The terrorist said his other team members caught hold of five men on MV Kuber and then killed four of them while keeping one -- Amarsinh -- alive to guide them to Mumbai.
"Char halal ho gaye jenab (four have been killed)," was the message relayed by one of the Lashker terrorists to his masters across the border.
The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) had intercepted this message but could not make out anything of it except for reissuing the warning to Coast Guard to increase vigil, the sources claimed.
After the Mumbai attacks, the location of the call was found to be in the area where Al Husseni was sailing, the sources said.
While central security agencies were claiming that there was no role of any local group behind the attack, Mumbai Police was looking for a Colaba-based businessman, who allegedly runs a diesel smuggling racket for underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who has been designated as Global Terrorist by the US.
Senior officials investigating the case also denied that Kasab had said that they had other plans, besides attacking the Oberoi, Taj Mahal and Nariman House.
The militants were instructed to go on a killing spree as a result of which they had even tried to enter a prominent media house located opposite to CST terminus, the sources said.
The Coast Guard captured the Indian trawler MV Kuber and found a Global Positioning System abandoned on it while it was drifting nearly four nautical miles off the coast of Mumbai early on Thursday morning, several hours after the terrorist attacks began. Investigators were going through the call data details downloaded from the satellite phone also recovered from the abandoned trawler. Many of the call details have revealed numbers that have been traced back to the Laskar's chief of operations, Muzamil.
The terrorists had been in constant touch with their masters across the border and some of their communications have also been intercepted by both the army as well as elite National Security Guards.