Indian Mujahideen

Before the July 26 serial blasts in Ahmedabad, the Indian Mujahideen (IM) was a lesser known terror outfit as compared to its older counterparts, the Lashkar-e-Tayeba (LeT) or the HUJI. Intelligence agencies suspect that the IM was born out of SIMI leader Safdar Nagori's ambition to raise a terror outfit that was independent of the LeT, and more loyal to Mullah Omar of the Taliban group and Al-Qaeda. The IM follows the principle of frontal attack and also challenging while they attack. The act of sending terror emails minutes before the attack is their way of displaying how members are well-versed with technology.The IM is believed to have a strong presence in Mumbai, Bangaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Gujarat, MP and UP. Intelligence agencies have a constant watch on universities in Uttar Pradesh, which are breeding grounds for the group. Intelligence agencies have identified nine districts in UP as a hotbed for IM activity. These include Lucknow, Kanpur, Aligarh, Agra, Faizabad, Bahraich, Barabanki, Lakhimpur Kheri and Azamgarh. Unlike other terror groups, IM trains its members in the guise of trekking camps. The stress while recruiting IM members is that they should be an expert in some field, be it technology, management or resources.The IM is the only terror group which is media conscious. The group has its own media wing, which looks after the news published in daily news papers and keeps monitoring the electronic channels. In IM, every member has his own specialisation. Members include software engineers, electricians, graphic designers, hackers, planners, car robbers, bomb makers and co-ordinators. The co-ordinator communicates among the members and informs to a particular member, only about the part he (the member) is asked to fulfill. The planner identifies the spots which are to be targeted and carries out a recce of the area. A plan is then made and handed over to the planter who plants the bomb and waits till it explodes. He then takes pictures of the destruction. While the bomb is being assembled, the electrician prepares a circuit to cause the explosion and the programmer sets the timer. Meanwhile the graphic designer works on the terror e-mails to be sent minutes before the blast. The hacker works on an IP address which is to be used to send the mails. As soon as the bomb is planted, the planter informs the hacker who sends the mail. The graphic designer is also assigned to use images of the destruction.