Tech-savvy terrorists stump Mumbai investigators

SHATTERED: A restaurant window damaged in last week's militant attack is seen at the railway station.

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Mumbai: Police are grappling with global positioning systems (GPS), satellite phones and Google Earth images on the trail of the Mumbai attackers and finding themselves hobbled by technological inadequacy.

So far, police have found four GPS handsets, one satellite phone, nine mobile phones and computer discs with high-resolution images and maps of the 10 sites that were attacked.

The use of the Internet to make calls has also hampered the investigation.

"The use of technology has made it very difficult for us," Param Bir Singh, a top officer in Mumbai's anti-terrorism team, told Reuters.

"For the people we are dealing with, money is not a problem, and even the ones that are not very educated are trained in all manner of devices and know how to make interception difficult."

The lone surviving gunman of the Mumbai attack reportedly told interrogators in Mumbai the 10 gunmen, who led the three-day siege that killed 179 people, were shown videos and Google Earth images of the targets during their training in camps in Pakistan.

"They probably used the GPS for navigation and the satellite phone when they were on the sea, and then used the mobile phones to stay in touch with their handlers during the operations," Rakesh Maria, lead investigator of the police, has said.

Ratan Shrivastava, a defence expert at consultancy Frost & Sullivan and a former army officer, said "hostile groups" that have attacked India have always used very sophisticated technology and were typically very well-trained in the use of technology.

"While the Indian armed forces are well-equipped and our intelligence services have the capability to take on these technologies, there is very little coordination between them and the police, which is ill-equipped," he said.

He said a large part of the intelligence gathered these days is from monitoring the airwaves and intercepting conversations and e-mails but India lacked the resources and coordination to analyse and respond to the intelligence.

Mumbai police acknowledge the difficulties and the militants' apparent ease with sophisticated technology.

Singh said militants used VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and satellite phones, making it harder to intercept conversations.