They said, militants, after receiving arms' training in Pakistan, were pushed into India through Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Gujarat. "Even Nepal connections have figured prominently under the current diversification plans of the Punjab militants and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)," they said. According to these sources, periodic efforts have also been made to puncture the Punjab border. ISI has also introduced narco-terrorism and in recent months there has been growth in nexus between Punjab militants and persons involved in smuggling narcotics, they said. Interrogation of several militants has revealed that ISI was maintaining a regular supply of arms and ammunition to terrorists through Rajasthan and Gujaratborders, particularly with the help of trusted trans-border smugglers.

Babbar Khalsa International militant Balwinder Singh was arrested in Hoshiarpur in Punjab on June 16 and he told his interrogators that he along with one Bittu and a Pakistani national had entered India from Pakistan through Samba sector of Kashmir in January this year and had brought five AK-47 rifles and some explosives.

The whereabouts of his two associates were not known, the sources said, adding Singh had received three weeks' training in handling arms and explosives.

Earlier on June 11, police in Baroda, Gujarat, arrested three suspected Babbar Khalsa activists and a local contact and recovered from them a Chinese pistol with seven cartridges and two country-made pistols with five cartridges, they said. Their interrogation revealed that a consignment of weapons was being sent from Pakistan by some smugglers.

ISI is also laying stress on the coordination between Punjab militants, insurgent groups of Jammu and Kashmir and somefundamentalist groups. "Investigating agencies believe that the five bomb blasts in Delhi last year were the handiwork of Khalistan Commando Force (Panjwar), Lashker-E-Toiba, Harkat-ul-Ansar which had the association of the group belonging to fundamentalist Abdul Karim Tunda," they said.

Intelligence agencies have also discovered emergence of new militant outfits, comprising splinter groups like Dal Khalsa, Babbar Khalsa (Parmar) and Tiger of Sikh Land, the sources said. Besides, militants released from jails are being "re-used" for terrorist activities in Punjab and elsewhere, they said.

A number of militants arrested over the last four months have revealed that they had been instructed to cause explosions to revive the atmosphere of terror in Punjab and neighbouring states.