Mumbai terrorists used Blackberrys, GPS navigation

New Delhi, Dec 4: The ten terrorists, who attacked Mumbai last week and killed nearly 200 people and injured nearly 300, navigated through the city using Global Positioning System equipment.

The Washington Post quoted Indian investigators and police as revealing that the terrorists carried BlackBerrys, compact discs holding high-resolution satellite images and multiple cell phones with switchable SIM cards, besides communicating with their handlers by satellite telephone and called voice-over-Internet-protocol phone numbers, making them harder to trace, to get at their targeted destinations. In effect, they used all available technology as a tactical tool to wreck the maximum damage.

And as television channels broadcast live coverage of the young men carrying out the terrorist attack, TV sets were turned on in the hotel rooms occupied by the gunmen, eyewitnesses recalled.

"Both sides used technology. The terrorists would not have been able to carry out these attacks had it not been for technology. They were not sailors, but they were able to use sophisticated GPS navigation tools and detailed maps to sail from Karachi [in Pakistan] to Mumbai," said G. Parthasarathy, an internal security expert at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.

"Our new reality of modern life is that the public also sent text messages to relatives trapped in hotels and used the Internet to try and fight back," he added.

The lone captured gunman, Azam Amir Kasab, told police that he was shown video footage of the targets and the satellite images before the attacks, said Deven Bharti, a deputy commissioner in the crime branch of the Mumbai police.

ANI