Author: PTI
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: February 5, 2007
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/feb/05delhi.htm
It could have been a bloody Monday for Delhi
had the four Jaish-e-Mohammad militants, who were planning multiple strikes
at crowded markets, not been arrested from the national capital territory
after a late-night encounter, police claimed.
The interrogation of the four -- three Kashmiris
and a Pakistani national -- has revealed that they were planning to make three
improvised explosive devices and plant them at busy markets before fleeing
to Kolkata.
Shahid Gafoor, hailing from Sialkot district
of Pakistan, was an expert in bomb-making and had been assigned to assemble
the IEDs from the three kg of RDX brought by the Kashmiri militants, Joint
Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Karnal Singh said.
Interestingly, though police said the strikes
were planned for Monday, they were unable to specify the markets. Police said
Gafoor had arrived in the capital early Sunday by Poorva Express from Kolkata,
where he had reached after crossing the border from Bangladesh last month.
"He had received arms and ammunition
training in Pakistan and is previously involved in two terrorist incidents
in Jammu and Kashmir, including an attack on a Rashtriya Rifles party in 2002,"
Singh added.
The investigation has also brought out startling
details about terror links in Kolkata as the Kashmiri militants have confessed
to have visited the eastern metropolis last month to deliver the US currency
recovered from them to somebody.
"The three Kashmiri militants -- Bashir
Ahmed Ponnu, Fayyaz Ahmed Lone and Abdul Majeed Baba -- had visited Kolkata
in the last week of January. They were to receive Rs 20 lakh from someone
in lieu of the $10,000 that we have recovered from them. But that meeting
did not take place," he said.
Meanwhile, the four suspected militants have been remanded to 10 days police
custody by a local court.