By IANS,
Islamabad : Pakistani investigators claim to have unearthed plans by a group of 20 Uzbek terrorists to target vital installations in Islamabad, as also Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
The claim, however, seems fanciful as it suggests India’s spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) has tied up with Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud to stage the attacks.
Mehsud has owned responsibility for the March 30 terror assault on the Manawan police academy on Lahore’s outskirts when heavily armed militants held over 400 trainees hostage for over eight hours before Pakistani security forces recaptured the complex.
“Our agencies have intercepted a RAW plan to hit Rawalpindi and Islamabad by using terrorist elements within Pakistan,” The News Friday quoted an official as saying.
An intelligence report shared with the newspaper by an interior ministry official “reveals” that Chaudhry’s life “is in danger as RAW wants to target him to cause anarchy in Pakistan”, it added.
According to the intelligence report, at least 20 Uzbek terrorists dispatched by Mehsud “have already reportedly reached Islamabad” and “would play a key role in this operation”.
They are divided in groups and each group has been assigned a different attack plan, the report said.
“The terrorists may try to capture important buildings like the Pakistan Secretariat blocks, TV stations, police training centres and foreign chains of schools,” the intelligence report said.
“This time, the attacks could be conducted at four or five places simultaneously in various areas of the twin-cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Vigilance is required to counter and curb attacks or terrorist acts planned by the extremists,” the report added.
Islamabad’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) Syed Kalb-e-Abbas confirmed the threats and said that rigorous security measures had been taken to secure the diplomatic enclave, military installations and other sensitive buildings.
Nasir Khan Durrani, the additional IGP of the adjacent garrison town of Rawalpindi, said the police had begun interrogating people who had been associated with terrorist outfits in the past.
“We are concentrating especially on spontaneous checking in different localities of the city and its outskirts,” Durrani added.
According to Moeen Masood, the additional IGP of the Special Branch: “We take every specific and non-specific threat seriously and maintain high state of alertness.”