By IANS
Lucknow : Three Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists – all Pakistani nationals – arrested here Friday, had definite plans to kidnap Congress leader and MP Rahul Gandhi, according to “confessional tapes” aired by television channels Saturday.
In the purported confessions, aired by private television channels, the arrested Pakistanis also gave out a detailed plan of how they were trained to get access to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son.
“Our plan was to kidnap Rahul Gandhi during one of his visits to Uttar Pradesh,” Mohammad Abid, one of the terrorists, was shown as saying in the “confessional tapes”.
According to the tapes, the terrorists planned to demand release of 42 JeM terrorists, jailed in different parts of India, in a swap for the young Amethi MP after he was taken hostage.
The jailed terrorists included Afzal Guru, who faces death sentence for his involvement in the attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001.
While the video clips the television channels aired were all identical and gave the impression of being parts of questioning of the three arrested terrorists, the Lucknow police feigned surprise over them.
A top police official said, “We are told that some TV reporter sneaked into the lock-up at the dead of the night.”
Describing it as a “major security lapse”, he added: “We can use the video-graphed confession as evidence.”
Elaborating on their action plan before the TV camera, the three terrorists individually confessed that their plan was to begin by gaining entry into the state Congress headquarters as part-time sweepers.
“After familiarising themselves with everyone around, they were briefed to go for their kill – through shock action,” the police official told IANS.
“According to their own admission, they would have stormed a particular venue scheduled to be visited by Rahul Gandhi over the coming months,” said the official.
Abid, the head of the three-member module, told the TV camera, “We were trained to storm the place by lobbing grenades and by opening a simultaneous barrage of bullets.”
The terrorists, all belonging to Pakistan and identified as Abid alias Faate, Yusuf alias Faisal and Mirza Rashid Baig, were arrested from the city outskirts here with two AK-47 assault rifles, three Chinese pistols, five kg of RDX and 16 detonators besides a huge cache of ammunition.
The three disclosed that during the course of their training in Pakistan, they were shown video clippings of public meetings and functions and movements of Rahul Gandhi.
The three were assaulted by a group of lawyers when they were being produced before a court here Saturday morning. They were immediately huddled into the chamber of the chief judicial magistrate.