By IANS
Lucknow : With the arrest of the state kingpin of Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) militant outfit with an accomplice Saturday, the Uttar Pradesh police claimed to have made a major breakthrough in the Nov 23 serial blasts in courts in three cities that killed 13 people.
The Special Task Force (STF) Saturday arrested two men, identified as Khalid Mujahid and Tariq Qasmi, near the railway station in Barabanki town near Lucknow and also seized explosives from them.
The police identified Tariq as a Unani doctor based in Azamgarh and Khalid as a teacher in a madrassa at Madiyaun town of Jaunpur district.
“The two arrested terrorists were loaded with explosives, including three kilograms of RDX, several packets of ammonium nitrate, half-a-dozen detonators and three mobiles,” Brij Lal, additional director general of police, told reporters here.
He added: “Confessions made by them during the interrogation revealed that Tariq was heading the overall HuJI unit in Uttar Pradesh… and (he) also owned up involvement in another blast at Gorakhpur in May.”
Tariq, in his early 30s, got his early education in Muzaffarnagar before he studied Unani medicine and established base in Azamagarh, according to the police. He, however, hasn’t received any militant training.
The 26-year-old Khalid Mujahid went to a militant camp in Kishtwar hills of Jammu and Kashmir to receive arms training between 2003-04 when he came in touch with a Kashmir-based HuJI commander, Khalid Kashmiri, who was nabbed in November 2006. Kashmiri is at present lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail.
The arrested duo, according to the police, was carrying out various militant activities across the state since 2005, with funding through hawala channel.
Their most recent strike was the Nov 23 blasts, when six explosions took place almost simultaneously in the court premises at Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow. Some 80 people were also injured in the explosions. Timer devices were used to explode the bombs concealed in ordinary bags hung from bicycles.