Once again, human intelligence (humint), and not electronic surveillance, helped the Maharashtra ATS crack the 13/7 triple blasts case.
ATS chief Rakesh Maria confirmed that the investigating body received its first reliable lead from its informants in November.
Based on the lead, the ATS learnt that a few youth from Darbhanga, who were in touch with each other using SIM cards procured with forged documents, were involved in the blasts. When the ATS started monitoring the calls made from Darbhanga to Mumbai and Pune, they realised that one of the cellphones was being used by one Imran, who was later identified as Yasin Bhatkal during interrogation of the other accused.
Mr Maria said that their initial investigations revealed that the funds for carrying out the blasts were sent to terrorists through hawala channels.
However, according to Mr Maria, the new modus operandi of the IM is to go to a new place, set up its base and then send its operatives to stay and work there.
“Bhatkal asked Naqi Ahmed Sheikh to shift base to Mumbai in September 2010. Naqi and his brother have a cellphone repair shop in Madanpura and Naqi had provided bogus SIM cards to Yasin and the other two wanted accused,” he said.
Mr Maria said that the menace of bogus SIM cards is a major concern for counter-terrorism agencies.
“The Mumbai police had conducted a survey in 2010 in 10 zones and found out that of the 26,450 SIM cards sampled, 8,909 (38 per cent) were procured with forged documents. One of the arrested accused in the SIM card case, Ganesh Tikole, an agent of MTNL, had sold original documents of subscribers of MTNL for `3 each to other cellphone