Two days after the Bengaluru crime branch picked up 11 suspected terrorists from the city and Hubli, details of the investigation are emerging.
The Intelligence Bureau tipped off the CCB police three months ago about the possible attacks by members of a terror “sleeper cell” in Karnataka. Some arrested members were under IB “surveillance” for the last two years, ever since the stadium blast in the city in 2010.
After the stadium blast in Bengaluru and another blast in Andhra Pradesh, the IB had brought some modules in AP under surveillance. One of the arrested suspects had revealed to the police that similar modules were functioning in the neighbouring Karna-taka too.
The IB obtained information on the terror module in Bengaluru and passed it on to the CCB.
Over the last three months, the investigation team, consisting of very few, hand-picked officers from the CCB, started tapping the phones of the suspects from a facility in the police officer’s mess. Their emails were tracked too. Some policemen were deployed near their residences to keep a watch on their movements.