1,000 operatives on prowl

HYDERABAD: In an alarming discovery that reveals the extent of penetration of international terror groups in Andhra Pradesh, at least 1,000 trained operatives and over a dozen handlers are on the prowl in Hyderabad, highly-placed sources told TOI.
However, there is no evidence so far to indicate as to when and where the operatives would act.
"They (the trained operatives) are there and can be put to use whenever the handlers want," a source said, and added that efforts are on to track these operatives and handlers.
"The operatives and their handlers are as of now faceless. It becomes extremely difficult to identify them as they operate in a close group, especially in modules, with each module having about three to four operatives. Each handler takes care of multiple modules," the source in the intelligence department said.
The handlers, too, represent different organisations depending on the operation. For instance, some handlers have been found to be representing LeT, Jaish and HuJI simultaneously in a particular geography.
The groups of operatives, too, have been found to be in floating module model with each module representing different organisations at different intervals.
Yet another hurdle before the police in identifying the local terror operatives is their unique method of communication called 'dead-dropping', which is the practice of composing a mail and saving it to the draft folder instead of sending it to a person.
"The operative and the handler share the same username and password of the mail account. The handler will compose an instruction or alert and save it in the draft box. The operative will open the same mail ID and read the draft. Nothing can be traced as no e-mail has actually been sent," a source said.
For now, the authorities are putting together a puzzle based on precedents and circumstantial evidence.