Did Gurdaspur jihadis plan to attack temples, college?

NEW DELHI: The GPS devices recovered from the terrorists killed in the terror attack in Punjab last Monday had the coordinates of two temples and a college fed in them, a revelation which has forced the intelligence agencies to probe if these were the primary targets.

Sajoti Mata ji temple, Chhotu Nath Mandir and SSM College in Dinanagar figure in the GPS coordinates, the logs accessed by TOI reveal.

The suspicion that the terrorists may have hijacked the police station in a desperate move after being spotted was already an aspect of investigation by the agencies as not having hostages did not serve them any purpose. The real plan, they say, could have been to hijack students of the college and target the temples.

Indian agencies could now take help of foreign agencies and the FBI lab to have the devices and the data analyzed minutely.

The GPS logs show that the devices had coordinates of 13 places in Punjab stored in them. A majority of the places were visited by the terrorists. The timers in the devices were altered to mislead investigators and the devices were switched on only after the terrorists crossed the border.




Highly placed sources in the security establishment told TOI that the Pakistani handlers had been extremely cautious in dealing with the GPS devices as they knew that it would be the only instrument which the Indian agencies will use to identify them.

While the devices have been set-up at Sargodha in Pakistam, the coordinates begin at 10.51am (altered time) in village Mastgarh and show Raavi River in village Rajpur Rajputan (India) as the first and the second spot frequented by the terrorists. The third place is village Makaura after which the temple of Sajoti Mata ji shows up.

The GPS then logs Conta in village Bala Pindi, Bhauath qazi chak and then records "near railway track village Talawandi near Dinanagar". This was where five live bombs were recovered on a railway bridge on the day of attack.

The GPS then logs "Chhotunath Mandi, Dinanagar to Taragarh road", after which it records "Targarh road near village Jhakhar Pindi". The last record is SSM College Dinanagar, a place on NH 15 which the terrorists could not reach.