Intelligence and security agency sources told this newspaper that it was India’s most wanted terrorist, Hafiz Saeed, who gave the final approval for the February 21 twin blasts in Hyderabad.
Saeed, the founder of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, gave the go-ahead for the bombings at a meeting of the United Jihad Council held on February 13 at a terror training camp in Muridke, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Incidentally, the meeting had been convened to plan strategy to avenge the hanging of Afzal Guru.
The Indian security and intelligence establishments are a worried lot. According to highly placed intelligence sources, Saeed has now taken complete charge of the United Jihad Council, an umbrella organisation of all anti-India terror outfits. Even though Hizbul Mujahideen head Syed Salahudin is the chairman of the council, intelligence sources revealed Saeed now calls the shots and that the twin blasts in Hyderabad were the latest example of Saeed’s growing clout.