Probe confirms terrorists' Pakistan and LeT links

KEEPING VIGIL: A security personnel stands guard near an entrance to Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Station, one of the sites targetted last week by terrorists.

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Mumbai: Investigations into the Mumbai terror attacks are throwing up more details with sources now saying the terrorists were in constant touch with each other and with their coordinators based in Pakistan.

The dramatic visuals of captured terrorist Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab in a black T-shirt, armed with an AK 47 assault rifle, along with his partner on a killing spree in south Mumbai, before the terrorists took over hundreds of hostages at the Taj Hotel, Oberoi Trident Hotel and Nariman House started one of the longest terror strikes in India.

Sources have now confirmed the terrorists used locally procured six pre-paid mobile SIM cards out of which three each were purchased from Kolkata and Delhi.

The SIMs were purchased in advance and sent to Pakistan. The SIMs were carried by the terrorists while coming to Mumbai from Karachi.

Police believe their controller was Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Mohammed Muzammil, who put six of them on a conference call using Voice over Internet Protocol system.

Sources also say the calls were made using the same computer from Lahore, which was used to send the Deccan Mujahideen e-mail claiming responsibility for the attack.

Sources have now established the controller in Lahore was issuing instructions to the terrorists in Punjabi, briefing them on what movements they should adopt once they were surrounded by commandos.

They were even told how to change floors and how to fire strategically.

Sources have told CNN-IBN the Federal bureau of Investigation (FBI) officers are now helping Mumbai Police in decoding and tracking the VOIP connection.

Sources also say intelligence agencies were able to tap the conversation a short while after hotel siege began.

One such conversation referred to a congratulatory sentence between Kasab and the Lahore handler boasting about the killing of senior police officers.

Sources claim once the batteries of the terrorists' mobile sets got exhausted, they used handsets of guests inside the hotel to carry on their discussions.

Crime branch officials are now scanning about 500 numbers which were inside the hotel at the time of the attack to establish which sets were used.

Investigations have also suggested that the terrorists were given operational code names. One of the terrorist was called Operation VTS.

A Garmin GPS system has been seized and FBI has helped Mumbai Police with their technical inputs.

The Joint Intelligence Committee has several hours of recorded conversations between the terrorists and their handlers and it is a piece of evidence which is turning out to be most crucial in linking the horrific terror attack to the masterminds and pinning the larger conspiracy.

With FBI helping Mumbai Police in decoding technical coordinates, the jigsaw may finally be falling in place.