Praveen Swami

NEW DELHI: Sahil Pavaskar used to leave home early and return late, and appeared to have no friends or family — in other words, leading a colourless life exactly like those of hundreds of thousands of young migrants to Mumbai.

Pavaskar’s neighbours found that the young man, who had rented a one-room tenement at 98-B Batatawala Chawl on Patthe Bapurao Marg, did not encourage casual conversation. Staff at Soft Pro computers in Mumbai’s Fort area, where he attended computer classes, thought he had moved from New Delhi in search of work.

But police in several States, who had reason to get to know Pavaskar better, found he was in fact Fahim Arshad Ansari — a print worker who went on to become one of the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s key covert operatives in India. (Full Story)