Mumbai:
Investigators from top security agencies have fanned out across the country in a bid to find leads, but investigations into the Mumbai terror blasts of last Wednesday seem to have yielded little yet. And sources say this is because the perpetrators seem to have gone back to old tactics - depending completely on human couriers or operatives to plan the attacks and assemble and trigger the bombs.
Sources said it was believed that the plotters used modules of only 3 or 4 members, with no prior criminal record, and this had helped them escape attention. The use of mobile phones was limited, no emails seemed to have been exchanged among the attackers and none had been sent out claiming responsibility for the blasts, they said.
While remnants of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Indian Mujahideen (IM) are the key suspects in the bombings, the sources said the modus operandi was a huge departure from the IM's earlier attacks, which involved significant use of technology. The change in tactics, they said, seemed to have come after the terror outfit suffered a huge blow following the 26/11 attacks in 2008 when several of its key operatives were arrested.
The sources said this time the top IM leadership, in collaboration with their Pakistani handlers, seemed to have decided to only give strategic direction and not get directly involved in the execution of these attacks to able to deny involvement.
Investigators are now trying to find possible leads from IM operatives currently in jail. On Saturday, a Mumbai Police team visited Ahmedabad to question Danish Riaz, a suspected IM operative arrested last month in connection with the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts.
(Read: Cops conduct nation-wide search for IM operatives)The Maharashtra ATS, reports said, is also probing the possibility of an IM module in Kolkata being behind in the blasts and has sought assistance from the Kolkata Police asking them to verify if any IM member travelled to Mumbai from Kolkata in the last few days. The ATS has specifically asked its Kolkata counterpart to check railway passenger reservation charts and details of passengers travelling from Kolkata to Mumbai and Kolkata to Kanpur in the last few days.
A team of the National Investigating Agency (NIA) has also travelled to Ajmer to question Jalees Ansari, also known as "Dr Bomb" and who is serving a life term for his role in earlier Mumbai blasts. Ansari was arrested in Mumbai in 1994 in a joint operation with the Gujarat police.
(Read: NIA questions 'Dr Bomb')