Author:
Publication: www.tehelka.com
Date: October 11, 2001
Mumbai, Oct 10, 2001 (PTI) - Mumbai
police have arrested six ISI operatives and aides of Chhota Shakeel who
had planned to eliminate Union Home Minister L K Advani and some other
key personalities and carry out major subversive acts at the behest of
ISI, police commissioner M N Singh said today.
The arrests were made in Mumbai,
Chennai and Bangalore in the past week, he told reporters here. "The entire
operation had been masterminded by some powers outside India at the behest
of ISI", he said adding that the gangsters had planned to eliminate some
personalities including Advani.
They had also planned to carry out
major subversive activities in Mumbai and Lucknow, including setting off
a series of bomb explosions at several strategic places.
The plan also included creating
communal tension with the sole motive of disturbing law and order in the
country and to vitiate the atmosphere, Singh said.
One of the accused, Akbar Husain
Shafi Hussain Khan (28) was arrested from Bangalore, while two others,
Zakir Hussain Sabirali Shaikh (30) and Mohammed Hanif Mohammed Ismail Panjari
(28) were arrested from Chennai. The trio, who were originally from Mumbai,
had fled the state after they learnt that the police were hot on their
trail, he added.
The remaining three, Javed Khan
(26), Srinivas Naidu (28) and Siddique Shaikh (40) were nabbed from Mumbai.
The six have been taken into police custody, Singh said.
According to Singh, the police had
gathered intelligence reports about the activities of the gangsters and
their presence in Mumbai around early last month.
A constant vigil let to the arrest
of Javed and Naidu from Mumbai. A sustained interrogation of the duo led
to the arrest of their associates from Chennai, Bangalore and the city,
the police commissioner added.
Police also recovered some documents
from the accused, including a diary, which they had maintained. The gangsters
had also been provided with ammunition to carry out the assigned task.
However, no explosives were recovered from them, Singh said.
The police were also on a lookout
for some more accomplices of the gangsters, he said adding investigations
were also on to trace other operations of the gang.
Singh said the gangsters who had
criminal records were in constant touch with Chhota Shakeel. "The arrested
are just foot soldiers of the gang. The local people do not want any trouble.
The strings are being pulled from those seated outside the country, who
want to create problems and instigate people with view to create internal
strife", he said.
Replying to a query regarding the
arrests of the gangsters in the wake of the terrorist attack on the US,
Singh said the information about the gangsters had been gathered much before
the September 11 incident.
"We have averted a major tragedy
with the arrest of the six gangsters", he said adding investigations so
far revealed that Mumbai leaders did not figure on the hit list of the
gangsters.
