Author: Express News Service
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 14, 2006
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/4406.html
Four days after three Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
operatives were arrested with a huge cache of arms and explosives in Aurangabad,
the state Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) in a joint operation with the Nashik
(rural) Police on Saturday morning recovered an AK-47 rifle with two magazines,
50 hand grenades and 200 cartridges in the Ankai fort area.
''This is part of the same consignment which
we had seized a few days back in Aurangabad. Preliminary investigations reveal
that the consignment had arrived here and was to be sent further up. It was
only being stocked here as a transit point. It was certainly not meant for
use in Maharashtra,'' said ATS chief, Joint Commissioner of Police K P Raghuvanshi.
He added that investigations are on to identify the destination.
According to ATS officials, this seizure was
made on the basis of information given by the three LeT operatives during
custodial questioning. The three, remanded in police custody till May 24,
had reportedly told police that their colleagues had escaped in an Indica
car. ''We are still searching for its occupants. We suspect a top Lashkar
operative was travelling in it,'' an ATS official said.
On Friday morning, an abandoned car was found
standing in the middle of a field near Malegaon. Five people were detained
and eventually recovered the keys of the abandoned car from them.
They were arrested after investigations revealed
that they had helped the LeT operatives change the registration plates of
a Tata Sumo in which a part of the arms consignment was being transported
and also the Indica car in which another group of suspected LeT operatives
were travelling and managed to escape. ATS officials said that they had also
tried to destroy the car but were rounded up before they could succeed.
ATS official fanned out across the region
to look for the missing men. Today, the teams found two wooden boxes and a
CPU frame. Like in Aurangabad, the boxes had ammunition and the CPU an AK-47.
