M A I N   N E W S

Karnataka terror probe widens; 5 more arrested
* Anti-Terror Squad nabs 4 in M’rashtra
* Youth held in Hyderabad
Shiv Kumar & Shubhadeep Choudhury
Tribune News Service

Mumbai/Bangalore, September 1
Five terror suspects — four in Maharashtra and one in Andhra Pradesh — were arrested on Saturday for their alleged links with the members of the Bangalore terror module.

"We have arrested four persons from the Nanded district. They have links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba,” Anti-Terror Squad chief Rakesh Maria told reporters. The arrests were made on the basis of information received from the eleven terror suspects arrested in Bangalore on August 30, Maria said. The four suspects were picked up from various locations in Nanded in the past two days following a tip-off about their possible involvement in terror activities.

In addition to it, a student has been arrested from Hyderabad. According to reports, Obaid-ur-Rehman (26) was arrested by the Bangalore police. He is believed to be associated with the LeT and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al-Islami (HuJI) and is being questioned, said the police.

"Obaid, along with others, had conspired to kill two corporators and one prominent leader of a Hindu organisation of Hyderabad," Police Commissioner Jyotiprakash Mirji told reporters in Bangalore.

According to sources, those arrested today in Maharashtra are suspected to have been recruited by LeT’s Abu Jundal, who was deported from Saudi Arabia a few months back, and his associates over the past few years.

Jundal, aka, Syed Zabinuddin Ansari, who hails from Maharashtra's Beed district had established several modules of the organisation before fleeing the country, says the police.

The arrests in Bangalore were made following the confessions obtained from Jundal. The eleven suspects, including a journalist and DRDO scientist, were allegedly plotting to target MPs, MLAs and mediapersons in Karnataka. The module was also planning attacks on nuclear installations and vital Navy and Army establishments in South India following directives from their LeT and HuJI handlers in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. “They were planning attacks on vital installations such as the Kaiga nuclear power plant and the Sea Bird Naval base at Karwar,” said the Bangalore Police Commissioner. “Two maps of Chennai and India, a map of Iran, some Urdu newspaper cuttings and religious books were seized from their residences in Bangalore and Hubli,” he said.

The Karnataka Crime Branch has set up a special team to probe the ‘terror links’ of the 11 suspects. The police has recovered a 7.65 pistol, seven cartridges, 16 mobile handsets, eight SIM cards, three pen drives, four ATM cards, seven laptops and a motorbike from them.

Vital targets

• The interrogation of those arrested in Karnataka on August 30 revealed that the module had planned to attack a nuclear installation and vital Navy and Army establishments in South India
• The 11 suspects were allegedly plotting to target MPs, MLAs and mediapersons in Karnataka
• Those arrested from Nanded are suspected to have been recruited by LeT’s Abu Jundal, who was deported from Saudi Arabia a few months ago.