Mumbai, Aug 27 - A key witness in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case told a court Thursday he had seen two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) activists exchanging maps of various targets in the city.

Naruddin Mehboob Shaikh, a resident of Goregaon suburb in north-west Mumbai, identified Fahim Ansari as his friend and neighbour of over 30 years, and also identified Sabahuddin Shaikh as Fahim's friend whom he had met in Nepal.

Shaikh's testimony could be crucial to nail the LeT activists, since, according to the prosecution, they had prepared maps on the instructions of Pakistan-based chief of LeT operations Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, one of the masterminds of the Nov 26-29, 2008, terror attacks that claimed over 170 lives.

Sheikh told Special Judge M.L. Tahilyani that he had met Fahim and Sabahuddin in Nepal, where he had gone to meet a common friend, Bharat Thakur, in January 2008.

'When I met Fahim, he invited me to his guest house and there I met Sabahuddin for the first time,' Shaikh said.

During the course of the conversation, Sabahuddin enquired of Fahim whether he had done Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi's work.

'Fahim removed some papers and handed them over to Sabahuddin. But while doing so, some of the papers fell from his hands. They were some maps,' Shaikh said.

Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam had said earlier that Fahim conducted detailed reconnaissance of the targeted locations with the help of information provided by Sabahuddin.