Sources, however, acknowledged that the location could not be precisely determined unless Twitter gets back with the information India has sought.
Official sources said the tweets just could be a brag or a prank, but said they were constrained to investigate its origin. The fact that it put out its first tweet barely 16 hours before the terror strike has forced agencies to pursue the US-based social network site for details on the account holder's location.
The account also claims the support of D Company, a reference to the underworld empire of the 1993 Mumbai blasts accused.
The first tweet from the Twitter handle came at 14:02 hours on July 6. On July 7, at 18:32 hours, there was another tweet saying "9 dhamake humne karay" (We carried out the nine blasts).
Although IM has made a "rok sako to rok lo (stop us if you can)" taunt earlier also, sources said there were reasons to doubt the authenticity of this purported IM Twitter handle as "there are spelling mistakes." The introduction spells terrorist as "terriorist". Even the 'Indian Mujahideen' is spelt different as 'Indian Mujahidin' (unlike what IM emails used).
Past e-mails from IM have consistently stressed the Indian roots of the group in order to distract attention from the Lashkar's role. However, this particular account made no secret that it was following Twitter accounts of LeT founder Hafiz Saeed and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. Four others include Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Also, IM had so far used long emails to justify terror attacks as retaliation against alleged persecution of Indian Muslims and to hold out warnings. The 6 emails sent between 2007 and 2010 quoted from Islamic scriptures and were full of rants against Hindus and their faith. They were also replete with references to the Babri demolition, communal violence in Gujarat and other instances of alleged atrocities on Muslims in Maharashtra and elsewhere.
A home ministry official also pointed out that if the tweets were found to be genuine, this would be the first instance of IM using a public platform to claim responsibility. "Till now, IM has used only emails to claim responsibility for the blasts. These were sent to select media houses," the official said.
Initially, it was felt that the person operating the account used a proxy server that indicated a location in Canada.
"We are trying to gather details relating to identity and IP address used to register the account. Though it could be a fake handle created by an impostor, we have to rule out any genuine link to IM, more so as a tweet ahead of the blasts warns of an impending strike at Mumbai," a senior home ministry official told TOI.
He also warned against reading much into the tweet on Mumbai, as no terror group is known to give a seven-day notice to the agencies and public ahead of a strike.
