As Operation Black Tornado, the mission launched by security forces against the most audacious terror strike on Indian soil crossed its 24th hour tonight, security agencies said that all available evidence pointed to the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba whose men used the sea route to reach Mumbai from Karachi.

Lashkar spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi denied any role but sources said the go-ahead for the attack came after a Lashkar conference at Muridke in Pakistan on Sunday.

At this meeting of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa — it now fronts for the Lashkar — which was held after a gap of two years, Lashkar founder and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed is said to have attacked India very strongly, stating that India ought to be punished for its activities in Afghanistan.

From what has been put together through intelligence inputs and brief questioning of Ismail, the terrorist who survived the encounter with the police at Girgaum Chowpatty, at least 20 terrorists reached Mumbai last night via the sea route from Karachi.

One of the key men in the attack, sources said, was one Imran Babbar, possibly controlling the entire operation.

It is learnt that the Lashkar men got into an Indian fishing trawler that had either been arranged or hijacked for this purpose just before entering Indian territorial waters. Having monitored Coast Guard patrols closely, sources said, a mother ship dropped them off in small boats from where they moved into an Indian fishing trawler to avoid detection. Once they reached close to the alighting point, they lowered themselves again into smaller boats arranged for them locally and then split into at least two groups for the attacks.

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