Terror orders came from Nariman House

According to telephone intercepts available with the IB, instructions were being sent out by cellular phone from one of the terrorists — killed by the NSG on Friday night at the Nariman House, reports Abhishek Sharan.

“Unke commando hain, maaro, maaro *&%$# (Their commandos have reached there, kill them)”

HT Image

“Uda do(shoot them)”

“Grenade phenk, grenade phenk(Throw grenade)”

“Jalaa de (Set fire)”

These were some of the instructions being sent out by cellular phone from one of the terrorists — killed by the National Security Guard on Friday night at the Jewish residential complex of Nariman House in south Mumbai — to his comrades, according to telephone intercepts available with the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

This man, as yet unidentified, allegedly the “operations controller” of the 10-man Lashkar-e-Tayyeba fidayeen unit that went on a 62-hour killing spree on 26/11, issued many of those instructions after watching live television coverage of the siege at all three locations, a senior IB officer tasked with monitoring these conversations told HT, requesting anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

“This suspect, who was killed along with another associate at the House but not before they allegedly killed five hostages, was the leader of the fidayeen team,” said the officer .

“Till he died on Friday, for over 44 hours since his team began attacks across the Taj Mahal, Oberoi and Trident hotels, this man was directing his eight other associates in their tactical maneuvers and armed actions against the NSG, Marine commandos and even the hostages,” said the IB officer.

“He (the controller) was the man who issued instructions on the type of offensive, defensive measures his men needed to take against the advancing commando teams,” the officer said.

The suspected team leader “kept an eye on the round-the-clock coverage of the ongoing commando operations carried out by news channels”, the officer said.

Alarmed by his alerts, security officials requested news channels to “not show current positions of the commandos, to use earlier footage”.