Terrorists told about targets 8 days before attack

The 10 Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists, who carried out a series of attacks on Mumbai last month, were told about their actual targets just eight days before the attack to maintain secrecy of the operation, according to a senior police officer.

The terrorists, who had undergone extensive training for carrying out commando-style operations, were given Google Earth images of their targets to study details like entry and exit points.

The attack at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) too suggests that none of these terrorists had conducted a recce of their targets, the officer said, adding that since the terrorists’ knowledge of the CST was based on photographs and Goggle Earth images, they were unsuccessful in navigating their way to a vantage point at the station.

At the same time, the counter-attack by the policemen present at the CST also played a major role in foiling the terrorists’ design, the officer added.

The CCTV footage from the other two targets — Taj Mahal and Trident hotels — show the terrorists were going room-to-room to take hostages and their movements looked clumsy and confused. “It seems they did not know the way,” the officer claimed. “However, we can’t rule out the possibility of some other group of terrorists coming to the city to do a recce of the targets,” the officer said.