New Delhi, September 26
Investigators of the Akshardham carnage have strong reasons to suspect that the two slain terrorists had at least one more accomplice, if not two.

Moreover, it is understood that Pakistan-supported militant outfits like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) had embarked upon ‘Operation Akshardham’ immediately after the February 27 Godhra incident.

The “third” man was probably the provider of logistics, who either disappeared into the crowd or just escaped minutes before the terrorists started their indiscriminate firing. Such a person is called a “sleeper agent” in intelligence parlance.

Well-placed sources here give the following reasons for “more accomplices” theory:

* The militants were carrying a load of 15 to 20 kg. This can be roughly calculated by the fact that the militants fired more than 1,000 rounds from their AK-series assault rifles and carried 30-odd grenades.

* Since it is known that the militants scaled a 7-foot wall to get inside the temple complex, a logical query is whether the terrorists would have climbed the wall while carrying all this load or were they helped by a “sleeper”, though climbing walls while carrying load of 15 to 20 kg is not impossible and is part of training of hardcore terrorists.

The theory of one or two more accomplices is reinforced by the fact that in the past two months, full-fledged modules of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad were busted in Gujarat. The imprints of the LeT and the JeM are clearly visible in the Akshardham carnage.