Reports noted that the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had plans to target senior scientists and engineers of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). This was revealed during the interrogation of a LeT operative Sarfaraz Nawaz by the Karnataka police in connection with the 2008 Bangalore blasts. Nawaz named a Pakistani terrorist, Jasim, as saying that the Lashkar planned to send terrorists to target the scientists, including ISRO head G. Madhavan Nair.

Officials stated that Nawaz’s statement had detailed accounts of how the terrorists in Kerala operated on instructions from leaders in Pakistan and in the Gulf. Nawaz was brought to Bangalore recently from Muscat in connection with the probe into the Bangalore blasts of July 25, 2008. Nawaz joined the SIMI in 1995, had attended Nadwat-ul-Ulema in Lucknow and started working in the SIMI headquarters in New Delhi in 2000.

The Union Home Ministry meanwhile asked scientists of ISRO to be extra careful in their movements and security around scientific installations was also enhanced1.

• 1. “LeT plans to target Isro scientists,” The Times of India, April 4, 2009, at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Lashkar-plans-to-target-ISRO-scientis... See also “Ministry cautions ISRO scientists,” The Hindu, April 4, 2009, at http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/04/stories/2009040460700100.htm