Mumbai: In a major breakthrough, Mumbai Police Monday claimed to have solved the mystery behind the terror emails sent by the Indian Mujahideen (IM) prior to the Ahmedabad and New Delhi serial blasts. Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor said here the three techies who had sent the emails have been arrested, as also 17 others who were responsible for a string of terror bombings in different cities.

Preliminary interrogation of all the accused has brought out the chilling revelation that they planned to carry out bomb blasts here during the ongoing Navratri festival, Gafoor said at a press conference that was telecast live by a number of TV news channels.

The initial breakthrough came on September 23 when five alleged terrorists owing allegiance to IM were arrested in and around Mumbai. Over the past 12 days, 15 more IM activists, most of them highly educated, were arrested from different cities, pushing the number of those held to 20, Gafoor said.

The three techies were arrested Sunday. They have been identified as Mohammed Mansoor Asghar Peerbhoy, alias Munna (31), working as a principal software engineer in an MNC on a salary of Rs.1.9 million per annum; Salman Kadar Shaikh alias Mobin (24), working as a senior technical advisor in an IT firm; and Asif Bashiruddin Shaikh (22), a mechanical engineer.

The emails were sent from three locations - Sanpada suburb of Navi Mumbai, Khalsa College, Matunga, and a private company in Chembur, both Mumbai suburbs, using the Wi-Fi.

Among those nabbed in the operations carried out jointly with the police of different states are 10 IM activists who planted the explosives in Ahmedabad and Surat. They had travelled from Karnataka to Pune and then to Surat and Ahmedabad with the explosives, Gafoor said.

All those arrested are highly educated and are aged between 20 and 35. They were picked up from Azamgarh, in Uttar Pradesh, Pune in Maharashtra, in and around Mangalore in Karnataka, and from Kochi in Kerala, Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Rakesh Maria said.

The IM has majorly spread its tentacles all over the country and the investigating agencies are now attempting to identify all its operatives and neutralize their nefarious intentions, Maria said. The arrested men had revealed that they have been involved in all the bomb blasts in India since 2005, he added.

According to Maria, the three software experts visited Mumbai five times prior to sending the blast emails and conducted a reccee of the Sion, Chembur, and CST areas in the city and in Sanpada in Navi Mumbai, where they could hack into wi-fi connections available.

They were instructed to send the emails a few minutes before the blasts in Ahmedabad and Delhi, which they did on the dot, Gafoor said. The terrorists were financed through the 'hawala' route, Gafoor added.

Prior to the Ahmedabad blasts, the techies came from Pune to Mumbai in a blue Maruti Esteem and sent the emails using the Wi-Fi connection of the residential Internet of an American software professional Kenneth Haywood in Sanpada, Navi Mumbai.