Author: Aman Sharma
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 11, 2006
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/4173.html
The interrogation of the two Lashkar-e-Toiba
terrorists arrested in Delhi on Monday has revealed a new route for terrorists-from
India to Pakistan and back via Bangladesh and Iran.
''The Bangladesh-Iran-Pakistan route as a
terrorist gateway has been established after the arrest of these two terrorists,''
says DCP (Special Cell) Ajay Kumar.
The interrogation report details the terror
route and training schedules. The report says that LeT has a fully-equipped
training base in Bahawalpur in Pakistan. Abdullah recalls how he was taught
fixing remote control device and how a Land Cruiser with a Pakistan government
sticker was provided to the recruits for travel up to the LoC where dry runs
are done.
Feroz Abdul Latif Ghaswala alias Abdullah
and Mohammad Chippa alias Ubedullah were arrested by the Delhi Police on Monday.
Abdullah told the Special Cell that he first
went to Pakistan in 2004 and returned in 2005 to Ahmedabad where he recruited
Ubedullah, a hardware engineer.
A resident of Mahim in Mumbai, Abdullah was
a diesel mechanic till he was recruited by a fidayeen group soon after the
Gujarat riots. ''I was sent to Bangladesh where I underwent training under
HUJI chief Mufti Andul Hasan. Impressed by my skills, they told me to go to
Pakistan for further training,'' Abdullah told the police.
Abdullah said he flew to Tehran in 2004 and
he slipped by road to Pakistan where he was ''greeted'' by LeT's India chief
Azam Cheema in Bahawalpur town. ''Cheema is a professor of Islamiat in Faisalabad's
Zadawaladan degree college. He teaches us to fire AKs and prepare ABCD timers
plus a special control device circuit whereby two batteries are fixed in such
a way that the bomb can't be defused,'' Abdullah told the police.
''I prepared four bombs with the help of detonators
as a test. Cheema and four other recruits with me went to Toba, around 100
km from Bahawalpur on the LoC with handgrenades, AKs and 'prepared' bombs.
I was allowed to fire 10 rounds from an AK-47, given four grenades to explode
and I also tested the four prepared bombs successfully. Passing the test,
I returned to Ahmedabad in 2005,'' he told the police.
Ubedullah's interrogation throws up the fact
that 'well-educated' recruits are in demand. A hardware engineer in Ahmedabad,
Ubedullah says he was motivated by Abdullah to join terrorist ranks in 2005.
He too took the same route.
''Abdullah's other activities in Ahmedabad,
where he had set up base to receive arms and ammunition and recruit people
like Ubedullah are being studied,'' says DCP Kumar.