These fidayeen belong to Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD) and erstwhile Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and have been hand-picked and trained by Pakistan’s ISI in camps of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. According to the inputs received by agencies, there are at least 7-8 women in this group and half of them are believed to have crossed over in the last one or two months.
Talha Sayeed, son of terrorist Hafiz Sayeed, is the commander of this operation, say sources. Among possible targets are refineries, nuclear reactors, metro trains, artillery stores besides army and paramilitary base camps, religious places and embassies.
The threat perception has been verbally conveyed to anti-terror squads of Delhi, Mumbai, Punjab and Bihar and some parts of south India. These operatives could be wearing Western attire and have been trained to honeytrap officials to gain entry into important installations, sources say.
The women have been given new identities and contacts of ISI’s sleeper cell members who would help them with logistics. Intercepted conversations have thrown up names like Razia, Sangeeta and Rubi. They also mention names like Muhammed Bhai, Ismail, Asgar and Junai. These men may either be accompanying them or could meet them in India, it is assumed.
The mention of JuD and JeM has puzzled agencies.
JeM has been disbanded and is now called Tehreek-e-Azadi Jammu and Kashmir. Both outfits have been known to have women-only cells but they are generally not used as suicide bombers. They are mostly involved in honey-trapping officials on social network to extract confidential information.
The current plot was uncovered when Delhi Police busted an espionage racket in which a lead aircraftman named Ranjith KK was honey-trapped by one Damini McNaught in December 2012, whose social media profile showed she was a resident of UK. However, it was later found that the profile was being operated from near ISI’s base in Peshawar and a base of JuD in Karachi.