Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Jul 16: Investigations into the recent Mumbai blasts have led the National Investigation Agency team to Bangalore, on suspicions that the city's Indian Mujahideen (IM) module may have worked in tandem with its units elsewhere in the country.

Bangalore's IM module is believed to be very strong, and has been under police eye ever since the 2008 blasts in the city.

Sources said that the IM carried out the Mumbai terror attack on Wednesday July 13 with 14 of its trained boys.

The three blasts that left 17 dead and almost 150 injured occured in busy areas of Dadar, Zaveri Bazaar and Opera House on Wednesday evening. Highly sofisticated IEDs were used in the attacks, the home ministry had said.

The NIA team arrived in Bangalore on Thursday July 14, a day after the blast. The team is investigating the banned SIMI outfit too.

The SIMI members in Jharkhand's Ranchi have already been raided. Intelligence outputs stated that the boys were primarily picked from Hyderabad, Bangalore and Ranchi. It has been already established with the help of CCTV footages that those who planted the bombs were not from Mumbai.

Though there was no prior intelligence warning about the blasts, and though home minister Chidambaram insisted that it was not an intelligence failure, it has now been revealed that the Mumbai plot was hatched way back in January but it could not be traced as the operation was carried out meticulously without the use of cell phones or mails.

The NIA team will investigate the IM units in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ranchi thoroughly to establish the identity of those who planted the bombs, sources said.