News

Delhi Police arrests 3 more suspects allegedly involved in capital’s blasts :

In an attempt to make further progress in the probe into Delhi serial blasts case, police have arrested three more suspected terrorists of Indian Mujahideen on Sunday.

The Delhi police claimed that the module was planning at least 20 more blasts in the capital, targeting the commercial hub of Nehru Place .

The 13-member module, whose two activists were killed and five have been arrested, was also involved in bomb blasts in Gorakhpur and Varanasi over the last two years, Delhi Police said.

As it intensified its hunt for the terrorists still at large, the three persons were held at around midnight from two places in south Delhi .

They were identified as Zia-ur-Rehman, Mohd Shakil and Shakir Nissar.

Their sustained interrogation revealed that the terrorists of IM, which was being used by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), had plans to carry out 20 explosions in Nehru Place and some other locations in the capital as they wanted "continuous" action.

"Their main aim was to target crowded places so that the blasts could result in large casualty…Their general feeling was that something should happen continuously and there should not be any vacuum in their activities," Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) H G S Dhaliwal told reporters.

Police also arrested Abdul Rehman, the caretaker of Batla House in South Delhi ’s Jamia Nagar locality where the terrorists were residing, on charges of cheating and forgery.

Rehman, the father of the arrested Zia, allegedly forged the signature of the owner of the house.

The three suspects were remanded to police custody for 14 days by a Delhi court.

"The module used to get restless when blasts were not happening and Atif (main man in Indian Mujahideen) used to tell the members that there is a drought in the newspapers and we have to do something," Dhaliwal said.

Four members of this module were also involved in Sankatmochan temple blast in Varanasi in March 2006 and explosions in Gorakhpur in November last, Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police (Special Cell) Karnal Singh told reporters.

"Atif and Saif planted bombs in the market in Varanasi , while Junaid placed the explosives at the railway station," Singh said.

The probe also unveils the linkages of the Delhi bombers with Lashkar-e-Taiba, he said, adding Atif, the point person of Indian Mujahideen, was in constant touch with Tauqir of SIMI.
"The LeT has linkages with HuJI and SIMI," Singh said.

Giving details about the Delhi serial blasts, Dhaliwal said Atif had meticulously planned these explosions to the minutest details like how the bombs would be placed, what clothes the bombers would wear and whether or not they would be clean shaven.

"The terrorists planted bombs in the evening to cause maximum casualty," he said.

They used to wrap the bombs in grey polythene bags and cover these with garbage like banana skin while placing in the dustbins to avoid detection, he said.

After carrying out the blasts, the terrorists assembled at L-18 in Jamia Nagar to watch TV news to see whose explosion had caused maximum casualties, Dhaliwal said.

"They even used to mock at each other and would compare the casualty of the blasts in localities where each of them planted bombs," he said.

A laptop, believed to belong to Atif, also had photographs of Tauqir and video clips of the Ahmadabad blasts, which were sent in emails shot off to various media organisations, Karnal Singh said.

The laptop also had posters showing the terrorists with title ‘Most Wanted’, the Joint CP said.

The Delhi Police is sharing information with its counterparts in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Gujarat which too had borne the brunt of terror attacks, Singh said.

The arrested terrorists had at least four years of association with Atif who usually would tell them "to do just what they were assigned to do and were not allowed to ask questions about future plans", Dhaliwal said.

All the arrested youth are well educated.

Shakil is a MA (Economics) student of Jamia University while Zia is pursuing third year BA in the same institution.

Nisar was doing an MBA through a distance education course from Manipal University .

Dhaliwal said Zia provided logistics support to the group while Shakil was an ideologue who indoctrinated the other members and kept a watch on them in the absence of Atif.

During interrogation of Mohd Saif and Zeeshan, who were arrested on Friday, they told investigators that the bomb in Gaffar market in Karol Bagh was planted by Shakeel, the DCP said.

Shakeel even had ice-cream on way to Gaffar Market to delay his arrival there as his intention was to place the bomb during the evening rush hour so that the casualties were more, Dhaliwal said.

Dhaliwal said Zia and Shakeel earlier had planted bombs at Maninagar area in the heart of Ahmedabad during the 26th July serial blasts.

Popularity: 1% [?]