With the twin blasts rocking Hyderabad, the issue pertaining to the sleeper cells in south India has gained importance once again.
Several suspected terrorists in their narcoanalysis tests have repeatedly confessed to the existence of sleeper cells in South India, especially in Karnataka.
The narcoanalysis test conducted on Sameer, one of the accused in the Mecca Masjid blast case arrested in Bangalore recently revealed that there were several sleeper modules in South India, including Karnataka. The tests had also revealed that the militant attacks are more focused on South India when army patrolling is intensified on the Indo-Pak border.
The narcoanalysis also spoke on the training camps in the Indo-Bangladesh border. The Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which is alleged to be conducting these training camps, pays around Rs 10 lakh for the larger operations while for the smaller ones the payment ranges between Rs 3 to Rs 4 lakh.
Such blasts, according to Sameer, are aimed at disturbing communal harmony and also to trigger Hindu-Muslim riots.
Senior police officers told rediff.com that the intention behind such attacks is not against any policy of the government, but to create communal tension.
Sameer further in his narcoanalysis test claimed that the plan to carry out such attacks was hatched in Pakistan. From there, the ladke (operatives) are taken to Bangladesh from where they sneak into India and carry out the attacks.
The Karnataka angle:
Police suspect that these persons could have been actively involved in setting up the terror modules and sleeper cells in Karnataka.
There are three terror modules in Karnataka being operated by the al Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.
Intelligence sources say that there are terror modules operating across the country and the modules in India have been divided into the Western and Southern Corridor and Eastern and Northern Corridor.
Till around 2003, South India was a haven for terrorists and this part of the country was used only to plan attacks. However, now with security beefed up in the northern parts of the country, terrorists have started carrying out operations in the south.
