Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 15
With the arrest of four terrorist suspects, the Delhi police today claimed to have foiled a bid by the banned terrorist outfit Lakshar-e-Toiba (LeT) to create panic and disturbance before and during the Republic Day parade.
The special cell of the Delhi police apprehended the four suspects Mohammad Afzal Kumar, Adil Nazir Keen, Ansar Ahmad Dar and Bilal Ahmad Mir, all residents of Anantnag district in Jammu and Kashmir, from a private hostel yesterday and seized 8 kg of RDX, four live electronic detonators and Rs 35 lakh in cash from them.
All of them were produced in the special court and were remanded in 10 days of police custody. Cases have been registered under POTO, various Sections of the IPC and the Explosives Substances Act.
Special Commissioner of Police (Intelligence) R.S. Gupta told newspersons that the special cell had information about the terrorists’ plan to create panic by setting off IEDs on the Republic Day parade route.
The group was in contact with a Pakistani, Abu Amaar, who is a district commander of the LeT in Anantnag. The commander became friendly with the militants in Anantnag, who then entrusted the job of causing explosions before the parade. Among the four militants one is a civil engineer and another a student from Chhattisgarh — all aged between 20 and 32.
Mr Gupta said the police had first picked up two militants from the hostel and interrogated them. Based on their disclosure the remaining two were nabbed from the hostel.
They came to Delhi 20 days ago and made the plan after assessing the situation by surveying the parade route. During this exercise they did not carry any explosives with them to avoid suspicion from the security personnel. In fact, their target was mainly the route and not the people, said Mr Gupta.
Two of the arrested militants were given two 10 rupee notes with predetermined numbers for identification by Amaar to receive Pakistan-sourced hawala money of about Rs 35 lakh from a local contact in Delhi.
