NEW
DELHI: Nearly two years after two Al Badr terrorists were arrested in Mysore and
their plan to blow up the Karnataka assembly averted in the nick of time,
Friday's near-simultaneous serial blasts in Bangalore confirm the presence of
several sleeper cells in the
region.
The two Al Badr jehadis
arrested on October 25, 2006 - 24-year-old Karachi resident Fahad and his
accomplice Ali Hussain - had acquired expertise in explosives making.
A CD recovered from them had
allegedly revealed designs of the group to blow up important installations,
including the Karnataka Vidhan Sabha and the High Court. Sleuths had found Fahad
scouting for explosive material
locally.
Friday's "dry run"
seems to have completed the circle, this time without the involvement of Fahad.
The seven near-simultaneous low intensity blasts - all having the footprint of
the jehadi network that had carried out blasts in Varanasi, Jaipur, Mumbai and
elsewhere - point to the strong foothold terrorists have made in the city more
known for its sunrise
industries.
In the first week
of July, security agencies had arrested two Bangalore residents in Kolkata while
they were taking delivery of a consignment of fake Indian currency.
The probe revealed the two
Bangloreans were actually Biharis and had settled as petty contractors in the
Karnataka capital. The accused, Ghulam Ghous and Mohammed Naeem, both in their
mid-30s, were in constant touch with a Bangladesh-based
network.
Though their roles
have not been traced to more than circulating fake notes, sources said dossiers
had been prepared by sleuths on the recent hyper-active Indo-Bangla border where
youths from northern states, particularly western UP, were going for training in
arms and explosives. These trained terrorists, on their return, spanned out to
different parts of the country and got shelter from the sleeper
cells.
In fact, early this
year, police had uncovered terror camps in the Karnataka forests where
radicalised youths were allegedly provided arms training. The forest area also
served as the recruitment centre for
jehadis.
A few months later, in
March, when SIMI's general secretary Safdar Nagori was held with his top
lieutenants in Indore, it was found that the group had been working closely with
Pakistan and Bangladesh-based terror outfits such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and HuJI.
Nagori and his men had an elaborate network in south India, particularly in
Karnataka, and were responsible for setting up sleeper cells for Lashkar-e-Taiba
and HuJI by reorganising SIMI's underground cadres in northern and southern
states.
SIMI's cadre profile,
many of them trained professionals, suited the international terror outfits that
worked on new technologies to outwit the security agencies. These upwardly
mobile jehadis provide more stealth than an illiterate as they are difficult to
crack once
motivated.
(pradeep.thakur@timesgroup.com)