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| India-Pakistan |
| Mumbai blasts: New cadre at work, believe state cops |
| 2011-07-15 |
| AHMEDABAD: Gujarat's police officials believe that terrorists behind the Mumbai blasts belong to a cadre that sprung up in the post-SIMI (Students' Islamic Movement of India) phase. Police say that the new terror recruits do not figure on the security radar. That gives the recruits deadly anonymity in terror-torn states such as Gujarat and Maharashtra. City crime branch officials said that the terror operatives had once grouped under the aegis of SIMI, but the grouping disbanded soon after 2008 when several police agencies carried out a nationwide crackdown. Senior operatives such as the Batkal brothers, Abdus Subhan alias Tauqeer, and Amir Raza Khan have fled the country, while the sleeper cells have lied low. "The groups don't have any label like the Indian Mujahideen. They come and go as the operations warrant," said a senior state police official. "We have reasons to believe that these recruits are the new faces of subversive operations. While no group has so far claimed responsibility for the Mumbai blasts, the explosive mix of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil indicate IM modus operandi." A senior ATS official said that since 2002, terrorists have picked either religious places like Akshardham and Hanuman Temple or crowded targets such as Mumbai's local trains and markets in Ahmedabad, Delhi and Jaipur. "They later started targeting prominent places and landmarks thronged by foreign visitors, as seen in the attack on Taj Hotel. Now they have again started targeting affluent areas to spread terror," he said. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |