By IANS
Lucknow/Mumbai/Bangalore : Six suspected members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, including two Pakistani nationals, were arrested in Uttar Pradesh, foiling a plot to target key installations in Mumbai. The arrests could also provide a breakthrough in the probe into the IISc strike of 2005.
The Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttar Pradesh police said the arrests were made from various places in the state Saturday night and Sunday morning.
The six men were arrested for an attack on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp at Rampur, some 300 km from Lucknow, on New Year’s day. Eight people, including seven CRPF personnel, were killed in the strike.
Two of the arrested men were Pakistani nationals while the other four hailed from Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh, a police spokesman said. All the six were brought to the STF headquarters in Lucknow.
The police recovered two AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and a large cache of ammunition and explosives from them. Two Pakistani passports were also seized.
The first arrest was made from Munda Pandey town in Shahjahanpur district around midnight, the spokesman said.
Following the leads he provided, two more arrests were made from the Rampur bus station. The remaining three were nabbed from Charbagh area in Lucknow Sunday.
“Their interrogation has led to startling revelations about their plans to execute major terror strikes in certain parts of the country,” the official added.
The police suspect that some prominent political leaders were on their hit list.
Their arrests also foiled yet another plot to carry out terror strikes in Mumbai.
A senior STF official, who declined to be identified, told IANS by phone that one of the six militants is from Goregaon, a northwest suburb of Mumbai.
“The arrested accused, Faheem Ansari, 30, is married and has a child. He lives near the Purana Masjid in Moti Lal Nagar area of Goregaon,” the STF official said.
The Uttar Pradesh police recovered at least eight detailed hand-made maps of several installations in Mumbai that were to be targeted. These include: the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) that is the headquarters of Central Railway, and the Churchgate station which is the headquarters of Western Railway.
In 2004, Ansari went to Saudi Arabia for job and he is believed to have come in contact with some LeT activists there who arranged to take him to Pakistan.
According to his statement before the Uttar Pradesh police, Ansari underwent full-fledged training in Pakistan. He was also rewarded with a Pakistani passport and returned to Mumbai a few months ago via Kashmir.
Some time ago, Ansari took a room on rent at an undisclosed location in south Mumbai to serve as the hub of his activities. A few days ago, he went to Rampur in Uttar Pradesh to collect weapons and explosives for carrying out the terror acts in Mumbai.
“We believe that the terror acts were planned for end of February or early March. But, the plans have been foiled with their arrests,” the STF official said.
Significantly, March 12 happens to be the 15th anniversary of the serial blasts that rocked Mumbai in 1993.
The other alleged trained terrorists arrested along with Ansari include Amar Singh alias Romej, Ajay Malhotra alias Sehwez – both Pakistani nationals. The remaining trio – Sohel, Sallahudin Sanju and Baba Jung Bahadur – are from Uttar Pradesh.
The police suspect that since Bahadur is not a trained terrorist, he was engaged in providing logistics support to the others.
A Bangalore police team left for Uttar Pradesh to interrogate Sallahudin, as he is believed to be one of the masterminds of the attack on the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) here on Dec 28, 2005.
Sallahudin’s arrest is a major breakthrough in the IISc attack probe, Director General of Corps of Detectives (CoD) of Karnataka Police Ajai Kumar Singh said here Sunday evening.
A Bangalore police team will question Sallahudin and also bring him here for further interrogation, Singh told reporters.
He said the Karnataka police had tipped off their Uttar Pradesh colleagues on Sallahudin following the arrest of four suspected militants in the state recently.
Information about Sallahudin was obtained from Riyazuddin Nasir, the son of a Hyderabadi cleric, who was arrested along with Asadullah Abubacker on suspicion of vehicle theft in Honnali in central Karnataka district of Davangere in early January, Singh said.
M.C. Puri, a retired professor of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, was killed in the attack on the country’s premier research institute.
The arrests by the Uttar Pradesh police assume significance in the wake of similar plots coming to light from Goa and Karnataka.
Goa is on terror alert following the arrest of LeT militant Riyazuddin Nasir alias Mohammed Ghouse, who along with his associate Asadullah Abu Bakar was nabbed by the Karnataka police Jan 10.