Author: Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: | August 29, 2004
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/aug/29ap.htm
The Hyderabad police has arrested
eight suspected Lashkar-e-Tayiba operatives and unearthed a plot to explode
an improvised explosive device near a Ganesh temple in Secunderabad during
the forthcoming Ganesh festival.
Seven other suspects are absconding.
"By timely planning and action,
the city police unearthed the entire conspiracy, arrested the important
accused, seized explosives and saved the situation, which otherwise would
have resulted in a major law and order problem," Police Commissioner R
P Singh said on Sunday evening.
The arrested included a religious
leader, Maulana Naseeruddin, the commissioner said.
Naseeruddin headed an organisation
known as the Tahreek Tahfuz Shariat-e-Islami (Movement for Protection of
Islamic Law).
"Naseeruddin has been working clandestinely
on behalf of the Lashkar- e-Tayiba and their leaders Abdul Bari alias Abu
Hamza and Shahed alias Abu Nidal, both natives of Hyderabad, presently
operating from Saudi Arabia," Singh said.
"These operations were plotted in
pursuance of the overall terrorist game-plan of LeT to indulge in subversion
and sabotage to disturb peace and national integrity of India. Naseeruddin
has been instrumental in fomenting communal passions among the gullible
and innocent youth and making them resort to inhuman activities," the commissioner
added.
Naseeruddin was providing ideological,
financial and moral support to the other accused, who had planned very
meticulously and wanted to operate during the forthcoming Ganesh festival.
The accused had started procuring
firearms and explosives to prepare the IED, which was to be planted near
the Ganesh temple adjacent to the Secunderabad railway station.
One of the accused, in the guise
of a devotee, was to explode the IED by operating a remote control.
According to the officer, acting
on information that Naseeruddin and his associates were indulging in subversive
activities, a task force raided their hideout at Ghousenagar under the
Chandrayangutta police limits early Sunday.
The task force nabbed four persons
-- Ahmed Mohiuddin Rashid, Syed Abdul Quadeer, Sheikh Fareed and Munawarullah
Shareef -- and seized firearms, ammunition, explosive substances, fuse
wires and detonators.
An Ambassador car and two stolen
two-wheelers were also seized.
Another man, Abdul Aziz, an explosives
expert, managed to escape.
Based on the confessions of the
accused, the police apprehended Naseeruddin near his house and also arrested
three others -- Omar Farooq, Mohammed Jaweed and Ghulam Aslam Siddiqui--
from the house of one Aslam at Toli Chowki.
