Click to play videoNew Delhi: A day after the audacious terror attacks in Mumbai were brought to an end, Intelligence sources have told CNN-IBN that they had specific inputs about an impending strike in the city.
“US Intelligence sources had warned us in October that Pakistan-based terrorists were planning to attack Mumbai and would come from the sea,” sources said.
“The information was later developed upon by our own intelligence agencies, so much so that on November 19 — just a week before the attacks — they had specific information that Pakistan-based terrorists would take the sea route to the city,” they added.
They revealed that their agencies picked up radio and mobile chatter in Mumbai and Karachi, which was passed on to intelligence agencies in Delhi. Delhi forwarded the intelligence to the Maharashtra Government and the Indian Coast Guard.
Just two days before the attack, ATS Chief Hemant Karkare — killed during one of the gun battles — had personally asked all five-star hotels in Mumbai to step up the security.
Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group, which owns the Taj Hotel, confirmed that he had indeed been given a warning about the possibility of a terror attack before the 60-hour rampage began in the city on Wednesday.
In an interview with Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Fareed Zakaria, Tata said that following the tip off, hotel heightened its security but the measures could not have prevented the carnage, as the terrorists chose a back entrance to the hotel.
“We did have such a warning and we did have some measures — like barring parking in the portico and putting a metal detector at the entrance — but all that happened could not have been stopped because of those measures,” Tata said.
“They came from the back entrance and had everything planned,” he added.
The revelation contradicts the claim of the Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh who said his government had no intelligence input about the attack.
Based on the interrogation of suspected terrorist Mohammad Ajmal Mohammad Amir Kasar, it is believed that more terrorists could still be on the loose in Mumbai.
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