THE emergence of a new terror outfit, Jaish-ul-Hind (JuH), and its links with jailed Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative Tehseen Akhtar have left the country’s Intelligence agencies, the NIA and police forces of Mumbai and Delhi working on the same line of investigation. Two major questions are yet to be answered-- whether the IM has come up with a new identity as the JuH or is IM’s underground network is being revived to work with JuH. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has begun a pan-India operation to dig out answers to these questions.

 

Meanwhile, Delhi Police’s Special Cell and Mumbai’s Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) have engaged more than two dozen groups of officials to find out links between the two recent terror incidents reported from Mumbai and Delhi within a span of two months. These incidences gave birth to little-known JuH and raised doubts about whether IM was trying to revive itself. Of the two terror cases, the recent one was reported from Mumbai in which an SUV laden with 20 gelatin sticks was recovered outside industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s Antilia residence on February 25 and the other in which a minor blast took place in a car near the Israel embassy in Delhi on January 29. In a message, JuH claimed responsibility for the move but in another letter, the group denied its role.

 

A group of investigators said JuH was created inside Tihar Jail No. 8 -- which houses prisoners, including those from IM and Al-Qaeda -- who have been sentenced for cases of terror. However, another group of investigators said JuH might have been created outside but IM operatives who went underground are now being used to support the group. In a new development to the Antilia bomb scare and the blast outside Israeli Embassy cases, the Special Cell cops of the Delhi Police are set to question IM terrorist Tehseen Akhtar alias Monu in Tihar Jail after two mobile phones were recovered from his barrack. The investigation so far has revealed that a mobile handset has been seized from Akhtar’s barrack in jail No. 8, which was allegedly used to send Telegram messages claiming responsibility for parking an SUV with 20 gelatin sticks outside Ambani’s south Mumbai residence.