Mumbai attack: Hafiz Saeed present in terror control room: Chidambaram

Terming Abu Jundal as a "key operative" who will help in joining missing pieces in the 26/11 conspiracy, the government today said his interrogation had clearly established now that a control room had been set which had "some kind of state support".

Answering a series of questions on the arrest of 30-year-old Jundal, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said, "We think such a control room could not have been established without some kind of state support."

About the presence of others in the control room and whether founder chief of Lashker-e-Taiba Hafiz Saeed was also there, Chidambaram said "Yes, others were present and we think one of them was Hafiz Saeed."

He termed Jundal's arrest as an important development as far as the investigations in the 26/11 Mumbai terror case were concerned.

"In fact many missing pieces of the 26/11 conspiracy are now known to us through interrogation of Abu Jundal. He was a key operative, he was assigned the key responsibility to putting the 10 terrorists in intensive training and the customs followed by Mumbaikars.

"He was the key person who briefed the 10 persons including (Ajmal) Kasab and he had an important role in the control room," he said.

Asked to share some information from his interrogation, he said the security agencies have come to know where the training took place at one place training took place at another place a control room was established infrastructure was provided. "All this indicated that these activities could not have been carried out without some kind of state support. That is a logical inference we have to make. It is only when his investigation is complete, his interrogation is completed we will come to know who gave what support. At the moment he is being interrogated," Chidambaram said.

In a compliment to central security agencies, he said, "Once we came to know that he had left Pakistan, we succeeded in tracking him, took time in establishing identity and apprehended him.

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