Mumbai: The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Mumbai Police has launched a hunt for nearly 100 people from Mumbai who had gone to the Gulf on a work permit in the last one year and came back after a very short stint.
The ATS believes these 100 people, after landing in the Gulf, went straight to Pakistan for arms training and returned as members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba's (LeT) sleeper cells to carry out Tuesday's train blasts, a Mumbai daily reported on Monday.
The ATS has asked its informers in Jogeshwari, Govandi and Trombay to report on such Gulf-returned locals so that they can be picked up and questioned in the train blasts case.
The informers have been given these three specific areas for search because an LeT operative, Mushiruddin Siddiqui, arrested in January had told the police that youngsters from these localities had been sent across the border for training.
Siddiqui had revealed that 10 sleeper cells were ready to launch a terror attack in the city.
According to ATS officials, youths selected by terror outfits for training are sent across the border through four routes --- Dubai, Nepal, Bangladesh and Srinagar --- from where they are sent to Pakistan and given training in handling explosives.
Siddiqui also told the police that three men --- Ashfaq, Taj and Bada Imran --- all Jogeshwari residents, had crossed the border in January. In fact, these three men were in the ATS' suspect list.
This is not the only concern for the ATS. On Saturday, two persons, Asim Ali and Waled, were arrested in Nepal in connection with the serial blasts in Mumbai. On Monday, the two men were handed over to Indian authorities for investigations.
Nepal police was given names of six suspects by their Indian counterparts in connection with the Mumbai blasts. The Nepal police is said to be searching for the other suspects in the case.
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