By IANS,
Lucknow : A man, allegedly a member of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) who had provided logistic support to terrorists in the recent serial bombings, was arrested from here Monday, the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh police said.
The man, identified as Arif and nabbed from Charbagh locality, had played a role in the bombings in the courts of Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad and also provided logistical support to the bombers in Ahmedabad, the ATS said.
“He (Arif) is a key coordinator between the IM and the HuJI (Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami) in eastern Uttar Pradesh and was living in Daliganj locality of the city for the past three years,” state Director General of Police Vikram Singh told mediapersons.
A native of Sanjarpur village of Azamgarh district, Arif was preparing for pre-medical entrance examinations until his name came up during investigations into the serial court blasts, police said.
“A notebook on science was recovered from the bag containing RDX explosives that were defused by the bomb squad outside the Lucknow court premises and the investigation by the ATS led to his arrest,” an ATS official said, preferring anonymity.
During his interrogation, Arif revealed that the Lucknow court explosions were planned at the behest of Saif, who was arrested from Jamia Nagar of New Delhi after a shootout with police earlier this month.
While Atif and Sajid, along with a Delhi Police inspector, Mohan Chand Sharma, were killed in the ambush, Saif was arrested.
“The initial interrogation revealed that it was on Saif’s directive that he, along with two others, bought bicycles from the Chowk locality in Lucknow and placed the explosives on the court premises. However, the bomb containing RDX was defused and there were no casualties here,” Singh added.
The ATS also collected vital clues about other terror modules in the region and hoped to make more arrests soon, he added.
The state police chief also announced a cash reward of Rs.20,000 for the ATS team that arrested Arif.
“We will meet soon with more revelations,” he told the mediapersons.