New Delhi : Delhi Police has approached its Kolkata counterparts for the custody of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Arshad Khan who had provided contact numbers of Pakistan-based terrorist handlers to arrested LeT operative Abdul Subhan.
Police said Subhan came in touch with his Pakistan-based LeT handlers Javed Baluchi and Ajam Cheema with some phone numbers provided by Arshad, who is presently lodged in Kolkata jail.
Subhan, police said, was not in direct touch with Arshad but he got these numbers with the help of his nephew Asahbuddin, who was in Kolkata jail and is now under Delhi Police custody till Aug 2.
Asahbuddin and Arshad are associates and have links with the LeT, police said.
Arshad and his accomplice Asif Raza Khan were arrested by the Delhi Police crime branch from the Lodhi Garden area of south Delhi in October 2001 when they were passing on arms and ammunition meant for subversive activities in the country.
Arshad, who has been a member of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Asif Raza Khan are also the key accused in the high-profile kidnapping of Kolkata businessman Partho Roy Burman.
Asif was killed in a gun battle with Gujarat Police while allegedly trying to escape from custody, while Arshad, who was involved in four cases in West Bengal and two in Delhi, was taken to the Kolkata jail after Delhi Police handed him over to Kolkata in 2001.
“Arshad also helped Subhan get the hawala money,” said the official.
“We have approached Kolkata Police to get Arshad’s custody to clarify the facts revealed by Subhan,” he added.
The official said they have also questioned Subhan’s 20-year-old son Alam, but he has no terrorist links.
Alam told police he had helped Rashid, an LeT member arrested by the special cell in December 2013, meet Subhan.
Subhan, who is from Mewat in Haryana, joined the LeT in 2001. The same year he was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) following his linkage with a large haul of RDX and ammunition recovered from a truck from Patan in Gujarat.
Subhan was convicted for 10 years and came out of Sabarmati jail in 2010 after completing a sentence of about eight years.
“After his release from jail, Subhan again went back to his old ways and started indoctrinating and recruiting people from Mewat,” said an official.
According to the official, Subhan used religious congregations to spot youths for indoctrination.
“He was given a task to create a new LeT module in Mewat. Subhan used to impart his ideas of jihad after spotting a person and later used to reveal his identity as a hardcore LeT terrorist,” the official said.
Subhan visited Pakistan twice in 2012 and was tasked with recruiting young students from Mewat.