Press Trust of India Posted online: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 at 1846 hours IST
New Delhi, November 29: Nine Pakistan-based jehadi terrorists were involved in the July 11 bomb attacks on Mumbai's commuter trains, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan said.
"The investigation into this incident is complete, and the involvement of nine Pakistan-based jehadi terrorists, of whom one died, has been confirmed in the investigation," he told an international seminar on 'Growing Challenges of Terrorism with special reference to railways'.
More than 20 Indians involved in carrying out the attacks were arrested and chargesheeted, but the eight Pakistanis managed to escape to their country, he said.
Narayanan said the probe into the attacks had revealed that the Pakistanis came to India through three different routes--Bangladesh, Nepal and the sea--and were directly involved in planting the bombs.
The explosives were stored in a residential suburb in Mumbai and packed into pressure cookers before being placed in first-class train compartments. A great deal of 'advance planning and careful preparation' had gone into the attacks that were masterminded 'by well-known jehadi leaders in Pakistan like Azam Cheema', he said.
Intelligence experts have managed to piece together the information obtained from the train bombings and probes into other terrorist attacks to reach a 'conclusion about the existence of a common thread linking attacks on mass transport networks, such as the Mumbai blasts, with targeted attacks on religious places like Varanasi and the Ram Janmbhoomi complex' and the blast in Delhi's Sarojini Nagar market, he said.
