By IANS,
Lucknow : The Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh police is now looking for two more students of the Lucknow University, who studied with a suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Mohammad Aslam alias Salim arrested in Delhi Tuesday.
Sources here said the university administration had also provided the identity card details of all the three suspects to the ATS.
“According to our records, while Salim’s ID No. was 162393, the other two, Mohammad Ashraf and Mohammad Abdullah, who are being searched by the ATS have ID Nos. 162385 and 162404”, an official of the university’s admission wing told IANS, preferring anonymity.
“Mohammad Aslam alias Salim was a student of M.A. Arabic Studies from 2003 to 2005. A native of Rajouri in Kashmir, his ‘operational name’ in Lucknow was Mohammad Salim,” Additional Director General of police Brijlal earlier told reporters.
ATS officials said Ashraf and Abdullah were Salim’s class-mates and had taken admission in the university as part of a “well planned strategy.”
Meanwhile, an ATS team of the state is camping in New Delhi to interrogate Salim.
“The team is in New Delhi and the Delhi police has yet not given us time for interrogation”, additional director general of police A.K. Jain told reporters.
The police have also traced the lodge where Salim stayed while in Lucknow.
“Salim lived in the Ashish Lodge near the university and its owner Ashish is a native of western UP (Uttar Pradesh). Majority of the residents of the lodge are from western UP and all its records have been seized. We are know looking for Ashish”, a police official said.
A Pakistani passport, a Jammu and Kashmir voter identity card and some explosives were recovered from Salim.
He had been sent to Lucknow to take charge of the “sleeper modules” of the LeT in the eastern region of the state.
“An expert in computers, Salim is a trained militant of the LeT. He had also received rigorous training in Pakistan. His admission to Lucknow University was a well-planned strategy of the LeT,” an ATS official said.
According to Maharashtra police records, Salim’s name surfaced after the arrest of three LeT terrorists, Mohammad Zubair, Mohammad Tanvir and Mohammad Amir, in 2006 from Aurangabad district.
Nearly 30 kg of RDX explosives and 10 AK-47 rifles were recovered from them. During interrogation, they revealed Salim’s name. He was in Lucknow at that time.
“However, Salim managed to escape to Pakistan via Nepal. A few days ago, he again slipped into India through Jammu and Kashmir and was caught in New Delhi,” the ATS source added.
Earlier this month, Delhi Police arrested two suspected Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists from Daryaganj area of central Delhi.