Ajatashatru
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NEW DELHI: Months before the Lashkar marauders struck Mumbai, the counter-terrorism wing of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) had been tipped off about a plan by the jihadi group to procure Indian mobiles. The counterterrorism wing decided to play along, and working with an IG of Jammu & Kashmir, decided to plant some of their own SIMs in the bunch that Lashkar contacts had obtained, by providing fake addresses, for their masters across the border.
The idea was to gather leads on Lashkar's plots, and the trick worked fabulously and was crucial in identifying Pakistani fingerprints on the Mumbai attack. In the initial hours, when there was utter confusion about the identity of the attackers, the number that IB had managed to plant gave Indian agencies the first idea that the gunmen rampaging across Mumbai were part of a Lashkar-ISI plot to bleed the city.
The agencies were groping in the dark when one of the attackers activated the number +91 9910719424 to get in touch with his handler. Being a Bharti Airtel connection, it caught the attention of IB's counterterror wing. A quick check of the data bank turned up the surprise: it was among the numbers which was planted by the IB.
The finding confirmed that the city had been subjected to a Lashkar-ISI attack. The IB people listening into the conversation through the number also found that the Lashkar operative who was with Ajmal Kasab was referred to as Ismail Bhai by the handlers in the Karachicontrol room.
The monitoring of the number also threw up the fact that they had come via the sea route and had landed at Badhwar Park, as well as the anger and disappointment of the handlers with Ismail Bhai for having left the GPS device in the inflatable dingy which they took to reach the coast.
The discovery of the GPS device, which was supposed to have been destroyed and consigned to the sea as soon as the gang neared Mumbai, proved critical in establishing that they had started from Karachi: all so critical for nailing Pakistan's lie that its agencies had nothing to do with the attack.
The number also helped police ascertain the location of another group of gunmen.
The significance of the SIM matches that of the lucky catch of Ajmal Kasab. But for these two facts, India would have had little to establish the complicity of Pakistan's state actors in the attack. The ISI and Lashkar had conspired to pass off the attackers, all of them determined to get killed after massacring innocents, as Indians. Fake identity cards introducing them as students of engineering colleges in Karnataka had been arranged, while the attackers had tied saffron threads to their wrists.
The statements made by some politicians who suspected the attack to be a Hindutva conspiracy to eliminate the then chief of Maharashtra ATS showed that they would have got away with it.
In their freshly-released book 'The Siege', Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark mention the importance of +91 9910719424. However, they say the number was traced by a western intelligence agency: a claim which has Indian agencies bristling with resentment.
SIMs planted by IB helped nail Pakistan's role in 26/11 Mumbai attacks - The Times of India
The idea was to gather leads on Lashkar's plots, and the trick worked fabulously and was crucial in identifying Pakistani fingerprints on the Mumbai attack. In the initial hours, when there was utter confusion about the identity of the attackers, the number that IB had managed to plant gave Indian agencies the first idea that the gunmen rampaging across Mumbai were part of a Lashkar-ISI plot to bleed the city.
The agencies were groping in the dark when one of the attackers activated the number +91 9910719424 to get in touch with his handler. Being a Bharti Airtel connection, it caught the attention of IB's counterterror wing. A quick check of the data bank turned up the surprise: it was among the numbers which was planted by the IB.
The finding confirmed that the city had been subjected to a Lashkar-ISI attack. The IB people listening into the conversation through the number also found that the Lashkar operative who was with Ajmal Kasab was referred to as Ismail Bhai by the handlers in the Karachicontrol room.
The monitoring of the number also threw up the fact that they had come via the sea route and had landed at Badhwar Park, as well as the anger and disappointment of the handlers with Ismail Bhai for having left the GPS device in the inflatable dingy which they took to reach the coast.
The discovery of the GPS device, which was supposed to have been destroyed and consigned to the sea as soon as the gang neared Mumbai, proved critical in establishing that they had started from Karachi: all so critical for nailing Pakistan's lie that its agencies had nothing to do with the attack.
The number also helped police ascertain the location of another group of gunmen.
The significance of the SIM matches that of the lucky catch of Ajmal Kasab. But for these two facts, India would have had little to establish the complicity of Pakistan's state actors in the attack. The ISI and Lashkar had conspired to pass off the attackers, all of them determined to get killed after massacring innocents, as Indians. Fake identity cards introducing them as students of engineering colleges in Karnataka had been arranged, while the attackers had tied saffron threads to their wrists.
The statements made by some politicians who suspected the attack to be a Hindutva conspiracy to eliminate the then chief of Maharashtra ATS showed that they would have got away with it.
In their freshly-released book 'The Siege', Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark mention the importance of +91 9910719424. However, they say the number was traced by a western intelligence agency: a claim which has Indian agencies bristling with resentment.
SIMs planted by IB helped nail Pakistan's role in 26/11 Mumbai attacks - The Times of India
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.....the sim was activated when those scum terrorist reached india...
