Police have disrupted a Lashkar-e-Taiba plot to bomb the Hyderabad offices of multinational Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu — one of the four largest auditors in the world.
Hyderabad resident Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, held over the weekend in the course of a National Investigation Agency-led operation, was planning to attack Deloitte's Hi-Tech City offices using grenades supplied by the Lashkar, police sources said.
Police believe Zia-ul-Haq, who worked as driver with a taxi firm contracted to Deloitte, carried out extensive reconnaissance at the facility.
Investigators say Zia-ul-Haq planned the attacks with top Lashkar commander Mohammad Rehan, who is believed to have responsibility for the jihadist group's south Indian networks. The Lashkar likely hoped that the attack would undermine international business confidence in India.
The investigators say Zia-ul-Haq first made contact with Islamist activists linked to the Lashkar way back in 1996, while working in Saudi Arabia. In the wake of the anti-Muslim violence that rocked Gujarat in 2002, he volunteered to train at its facilities in Pakistan. Police alleged that Zia-ul-Haq trained at a Lashkar facility at Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Police allege that Zia-ul-Haq earlier carried out a May 2006 bombing, targeting the Odeon Cinema in Hyderabad, using hand-grenades supplied to him through a Lashkar unit operating in Jammu and Kashmir. Grenades recovered from Zia-ul-Haq's home, police sources said, bore markings matching those of an unexploded device found outside the popular movie theatre.
