The two terrorists gunned down in an encounter in Thane district of Maharashtra could be 'couriers' handing over a consignment of fake currency and RDX explosives to a local contact, a top Anti Terrorist Squad official said on Wednesday.
"It seems they have some local contacts and we will work on information from various sources to conduct raids on suspected hideouts," Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare told media persons.
The two were gunned down by the ATS on Tuesday evening.
A senior police officer said information networks were strengthened following an input around 15-20 days ago that three Bangladeshis had slipped into the country and could possibly carry out subversive acts at the National Stock Exchange building and some nuclear installations in the city.
According to Karkare, the Pune unit of the ATS received a specific tip-off that a Bangaldeshi will be coming to hand over a RDX consignment to a contact in the Kashimira area in the neighbouring Thane district after which the trap was laid.
Police had asked them to surrender, but they fired at the officers and were killed in retaliatory fire. A Bangladeshi passport was recovered from one of them identifying him as Mohammed Ali while the second was identified as Babu, also suspected to be a Bangladeshi.
Two kg explosive suspected to be RDX, fake currency with the face value of over Rs 10 lakh and two factory-made firearms were recovered from the duo.
"The recovery of fake currency is surprising and was by chance," Karkare said.
He, however, said it is difficult to ascertain the group to which the duo belonged but the ATS suspects they could be from HuJI as they hail from Bangladesh.
Karkare said the duo were definitely not amongst the three who indoctrinated Mumbai-based Lashar-e-Tayiba operative Fahim Ansari into the jihad ideology.
Ansari was arrested in Uttar Pradesh recently and claims to have done a recce of over a dozen sensitive targets in the city. "We are probing if there are any links between the two."
The passport recovered on Ali's person will reveal plenty of information. According to the ATS' sources, Ali had come to India around 'two or three' days ago itself and come to the city via Kolkata.
Babu, Karkare said, is also suspected to be a Bangladeshi but no other details are known about him yet.
The RDX and fake currency notes seized will be analysed with the previous seizures made to ascertain its origin, Karkare said, adding that so far Indian agencies have been able to establish that three different printing presses are running in Bangladesh.
It will take around a week or two for the ATS to reach at a conclusion regarding specific details about the duo, he added.
