Revealed: Madani's recruitment strategy

What made the Mumbai 26/11 attacks so deadly in nature? First and foremost, it was the ploy of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and secondly it was perfect planning thanks to the near-perfect logistical support that had been provided to terrorists who finally entered into India's business capital and went on a rampage.

The arrest of Mohammad Omar Madani and his subsequent interrogation has now revealed that he had helped the Lashkar-e-Tayiba set up a large data base of India which included the logistics of Mumbai. An investigating officer told rediff.com that during the interrogation of Madani they got to know that he had prepared a logistics base of various places in India with the help of his jihadi croonies in Nepal.

When the interrogation into the Mumbai attacks commenced, the cops thought that it was Sabahuddin who was the chief of the Lashkar operations in Nepal. However, now it has become evident that Sabahuddin was second in command to Madani and it was the latter who controlled the entire operation from Nepal.

While Lashkar bosses sitting in Pakistan selected Fahim Ansari to prepare the logistics for the Mumbai operation, he went about doing his job with the help of the logistics infrastructure prepared by Madani.

Intelligence Bureau sources say Madani who was in charge of finance also had been handed out the responsibility of creating a huge data base of locations in India.

Madani, who hails from Bihar, had handpicked several youth from his state including Sabahuddin and recruited them into the Lashkar.

Madani said it was with the help of several youth from Bihar that he managed to create a data base of various places in India. He also added that with the help of the data base that he had set up, they were planning on conducting more recees in India and later planned on carrying out strikes in these places.

How he created logistic infrastructure? Madani, according to interrogators, has at least two dozen men within India who keep him informed on all developments from time to time. These men form part of the logistic infrastructure and they pass on information in return for money.

Investigations revealed that Madani also arranged fake passports and other documents to ensure that the cadres went about their jobs without having to face any sort of trouble.