Jundal will help piece together 26/11 conspiracy: Govt

Terming Lashkae-e-Tayiba terrorist Abu Jundal as a 'key operative' who will help in joining missing pieces in the 26/11 conspiracy, the government on Friday said his interrogation had clearly established now that a control room had been set which had 'some kind of state support'.

Answering a series of questions on the arrest of 30-year-old Jundal, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said, "We think such a control room could not have been established without some kind of state support."

About the presence of others in the control room and whether founder chief of Lashker-e-Taiba Hafiz Saeed was also there, Chidambaram said "Yes, others were present and we think one of them was Hafiz Saeed."

He termed Jundal's arrest as an important development as far as the investigations in the 26/11 Mumbai terror case were concerned.

"In fact many missing pieces of the 26/11 conspiracy are now known to us through interrogation of Abu Jundal. He was a key operative, he was assigned the key  responsibility to putting the 10 terrorists in intensive training and the customs followed by Mumbaikars.

"He was the key person who briefed the 10 persons including (Ajmal) Kasab and he had an important role in the control room," he said.

Asked to share some information from his interrogation, he said the security agencies have come to know where the training took place at one place training took place at another place a control room was established infrastructure was provided.

"All this indicated that these activities could not have been carried out without some kind of state support. That is a logical inference we have to make. It is only when his investigation is complete, his interrogation is completed we will come to know who gave what support. At the moment he is being interrogated," Chidambaram said.

In a compliment to central security agencies, he said, "Once we came to know that he had left Pakistan, we succeeded in tracking him, took time in establishing identity and apprehended him.

"Final conclusion is that we tracked him, we identified him and we apprehended him," he said.

The home minister sought to downplay any rift within security agencies and police forces of various states and said Syed Zabiuddin alias Abu Jundal was a suspect or an accused in

several cases -- the Ahmedabad Railway station blast case of February 19, 2006, the Aurangabad arms haul case of May 2006 and co-accused in German bakery blast case.

"In which cases he was actually involved that would be known in due course."

He said there were some reports that the different agencies are 'fighting' with each other. "No one is fighting anyone. At the moment the custody of Jundal has been given to Delhi police and investigation agencies and intelligence agencies have joined Delhi police in interrogation.

"I have told the chief minister of Maharashtra in due course with the permission of court he will be made available to the Anti-Terrorism Squad in Mumbai and to the Maharashtra Police in the Mumbai and Aurangabad cases."