Slain Mumbai terrorists had Karnataka links

The gunning down of two terrorists from Bangladesh in Thane district of Maharashtra has given the terror scenario in the country an entirely new dimension.

Interestingly, a day after the encounter, a report of the Intelligence Bureau said that terrorists from across the border were planning to strike at the Vaishno Devi temple in Jammu and that if the plan failed they would cause maximum casualties in the cities of New Delhi and Mumbai.

The Mumbai Anti Terrorist Squad claims that these men had been planning a terror strike in Mumbai. But what do terrorists have in store for Mumbai?

According to the Bangalore police, the Mumbai ATS will be coordinating with them to dig deeper into the case.

Bangalore police told rediff.com that the two men shot down in Mumbai had links with Abu Zaraar, the man picked up by the Uttar Pradesh police for his alleged role in the attack on the Central Reserve Police Force camp on January 1. Cops also strongly believe that Abu may have played a role in the attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

The IB suspects that terrorist outfits planned to set up sleeper cells in Mumbai so that they could strike at will. Having set up sleeper cells in Kerala, Karnataka and Hyderabad, terror outfits felt that by setting up similar cells in Mumbai, they would be able to create a terror network.

Through this network, they planned to strike at both financial institutions as well as religious places.

Terror outfits have realised that maximum damage can be caused to the Indian economy only if a strike is carried out in Mumbai. Over the months, they realised that they were losing base in Mumbai and hence there was a need to strengthen operations in this part of the country.

While the search for sleeper cells is on, the Mumbai ATS is also trying to verify whether the two slain terrorists were part of a larger network. They expect to find their answers in Karnataka, where the terror trail has been deepening with each passing day.

First and foremost they would have to ascertain whether these two men were part of the Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islamia. The Mumbai cops will work in tandem with their counterparts in Karnataka to crack this case.

The Mumbai police suspect that one of the terrorists killed in the encounter had entered the country from Bangladesh with RDX and counterfeit currency. He was to meet a contact and hand over the same.

The Mumbai cops will probe the counterfeit angle to this case. Several narco analysis tests conducted on suspected terrorists have indicated that a major fake currency racket was being used to fund terror attacks.

It is also believed that the terrorists enter the country with the fake currency and make Mumbai and Hyderabad their transit points. There are reports that the men arrested in Karnataka had plans of carrying out a spate of bombings in Goa, Mumbai, Karnataka and Hyderabad.