M A I N   N E W S

Cellphone bombs — LeT’s new terror tool
Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 30
Move over pen bombs, the Pakistan backed terrorist outfit, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), has now come out with bombs that would explode with the ring of a mobile phone.

This has reportedly been revealed by a 16-year-old ultra during interrogation in connection with the serial grenade attacks on Amarnath pilgrims at the general bus stand here last month. The ultra, identified as Noor Illahi alias Tipu, is being questioned at the joint interrogation centre here. He has been brought here from the Gursai village of Mendhar tehsil in the Poonch district.

He is learnt to have revealed during the interrogation that the RDX-TNT bomb would get triggered with the first ring in the mobile phone to which it is attached. The Central and state security agencies are already investigating the case relating to issue of SIM cards to applicants with fake addresses in the border districts of Rajouri and Poonch.

A similar case has come to light in the terrorist-infested Doda district. The security forces have recently seized mobile phones from a terrorist hideout for which SIM cards were issued by the BSNL reportedly on the name of an influential politician of the area.

Tipu is learnt to have told the police that about one kg of RDX-TNT mix is attached with a mobile phone that would explode with the first ring. The frequency of the mobile is matched with the explosive device.

Tipu and his associate, Sadam Hussain, were asked by top LeT terrorists, Arbaaz and Abu Shaheen, to plant the device in the house of a National Conference MLA at Mendhar but they refused to do so.

ISI poses major threat in Indo-Nepal border areas
Tribune News Service

Patna, July 30
After the recent decision by the Maoists in Nepal to join the mainstream followed by further extension of ceasefire for three months on Friday, the ISI is now reportedly posing a major threat to the security agencies and forces entrusted to guard the Indo-Nepal border, both in Bihar and West Bengal.

Sources disclosed that both the Central and the state intelligence wings were looking into the concerns expressed by some quarters that the ISI was trying to take advantage of the existing "soft border" treaty between India and Nepal to spread its network in the eastern part of India.

Sources claimed that such apprehensions gained credence with the recent arrests of Md Kamal and Khaleel Aziz by the Mumbai ATS from the Indo-Nepal border in Madhubani in connection with the 7/11 Mumbai serial blasts.

Over a dozen suspected ISI agents were also rounded in the past few years by security agencies from the Indo-Nepal border region in Bihar and West Bengal.

Sources pointed out that the arrest of two suspects in connection with the Mumbai serial blasts was not an event in isolation .

In 2002, suspected terrorists had opened fire on the police guarding the American Centre located on the busy Chowringhee road in Kolkata.

In an encounter which followed shortly in Hazaribag, Jharkhand, two main suspects in connection with the attack on the American Centre were gunned down by the police.

This was followed by the arrest of underworld don Aftab Ansari, now facing trial in Kolkata. Ansari was charged with being involved in masterminding the attack on the American Centre and also the abduction of the owner of the Khadim Shoe company.

Sources probing into the whereabouts of Aftab Ansari then did not rule out his links with various fundamentalist organisations, the ISI and the Dawood-led D company.

Against this backdrop, the Shasastra Seema Bal (SSB), which now guards the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar and West Bengal, is already in the process to augment its force and would be able to position 45,000 personnel on the ground by March next year.

Till June this year, the SSB had seized narcotics worth over Rs 1 crore from the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar alone.

The SSB also arrested two ISI agents, besides 11 militants and over 500 smugglers. There is, reportedly, a big racket of fake currency going on in the border areas.

SSB DG Tilak Kak had personally visited the Indo-Nepal border areas in Bihar last week after the Mumbai serial blasts.

The SSB has already urged the Bihar Government to connect all border outposts, presently numbering 148, through district roads and also favoured greater coordination between Central and state agencies against the reported growing ISI threat in the region.

Besides the border districts of North Bihar, the Kishanganj area adjacent to West Bengal and Nepal was another source of concern with regard to the reported ISI movements in the eastern part of the country.