Addressing both the national and international press, he said, “The person caught alive is certainly a Pakistani. The terrorists were trained for the attack by ex- army officials for over a year,” he said without naming a country. “The motive for the attack was to create maximum sensation,” he added.

“The mother ship which got them is indeed from Karachi, after which they hijacked an Indian fishing trawler and later used a rubber dinghy to walk up to the shore,” he said. He added that five groups of two carried one bomb each, of which two were planted in the cabs, one outside Taj, one outside Oberoi and one outside Leopold Café.

The investigation is also looking into the telephone intercepts of the terrorists as well as the usage of local SIM cards tracked to Delhi and Kolkata which were found in the trawler Kuber. Cash to the tune of Rs 5,400 along with some foreign currency was found on Kasab.

Gafoor said that the men were instructed to unleash terror and create maximum possible mayhem. “At Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, they were instructed to take a strategic location on top, which they could not find and hence they moved towards Cama,” he explained.

He clarified that ever since the Marriott attack in Pakistan there was a general alert for “hotels of that type” but no specific input was available.

He admitted that while there was an intelligence input long ago that the sea route will be used for attacks on Gujarat and South India, Mumbai was not specificied in any of these alerts.

He informed reporters that the Mumbai police was also sharing information with FBI and several other intelligence agencies of the world.