It was at this meeting that Tauqeer, the mastermind behind the Ahmedabad blasts, was asked to interact with ulemas in the country and convince them to support the jehadi movement.

Shahbaz talked about the group setting camps at three places in Indore district and gave details about SIMI top leadership meetings in Yavatmal in 2005, Perambavur in February 2006 and in Ujjain in July 2006.

While the so-called amir confirmed that SIMI’s network was largest in Gujarat, he conjectured that bombers used in Jaipur blasts could have come from Madhya Pradesh or neighbouring Gujarat, as the group had difficulty in penetrating Rajasthan.

Shahbaz is understood to have told the security agencies that SIMI had first planned to target Goa in January 2008, but had to pull back after the arrest of LeT-trained Riyazuddin Nasir in Karnataka.