Hafiz Saeed's LeT Engaged Operative to Set Up Bases in India, Says ex-Intel Officer

Bengaluru: Pakistan based LeT, which had orchestrated terror attacks in India, including Mumbai and Bengaluru from here, had engaged its operative Abu Hamza to set up bases in various parts of the country, according to a former top official of the state intelligence department.

As part of his mission, Hamza hired a man from Bihar and they carried out the December 28, 2005 attack at the Indian Institute of Science, killing mathematics professor Munish Chander Puri of IIT-Delhi and injuring four, Gopal B Hosur, former ADGP in the department said.

"The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had engaged Abu Hamza to plant terror in various parts of India. He in turn found Sababuddin from Bihar to carry out terror operations.

Sababuddin got admission to a local college in Bengaluru only to get an identity card. His intention was to set up a base and to survey the city," Hosur said. He was speaking at the release of a book "Corridors of intelligence Revealing politics" and its Kannada version "Goodhacaryeya Aa Dinagalu" (Intelligence of those days) authored by retired DGP Dr V Guru Prasad in the city Saturday.

Hosur said he came to know of LeT's role in the IISc attack after interrogating Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the terrorist nabbed alive after the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. "I was astonished at his vivid description of the incident and for a minute I thought he was also part of the Bengaluru terror attack incident at IISc," he said.

Hosur said Kasab told him that LeT had through a power point presentation explained to its recruits the reasons for the failure of the Bengaluru terror attack. As per the plan, the LeT operatives wanted to throw grenades and then open fire from their AK-56 assault rifles during a national seminar at the IISc on December 28, 2005.

They hired an autorickshaw and asked the driver to take them to the venue. However, the man refused to drive to the main gate in violation of traffic rules and took a detour. As a result the duo were delayed and the seminar was almost over, recalled Hosur.

Prof Puri was walking out of the auditorium when the terrorists threw the grenade, which did not explode. Then they opened fire indiscriminately, killing him and injuring others, Hosur said.

After the attack, Hamza went to Frazer Town area here, then made his way to Hyderabad, Patna, and from there to Nepal and finally Karachi. Kasab's aide Sababuddin was later nabbed in Nepal, he said.

Dr Guru Prasad opined that law and order should be shifted from the state list to the concurrent list to contain and control cross-border terrorism and left-wing extremism.