Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 7, 2006
The Mumbai police on Friday claimed to have
busted a terrorist plot after arresting three suspects outside a hotel in
central Mumbai and seizing a pistol, detonators and timers that could cause
five explosions.
Khursheed Gani Lone alias Lala (29), Arshad
Gulam Badru Hussain (27) and Ramzan Wahab Qazi (SO), suspected to be affiliated
to the dreaded Lashkar-e- Toiba outfit, were nabbed after the police
trailed them for two days.
All three were Kashmiris, residents of Sopore and Baramulla, who were wanted
in J&K for various offences. The arrests were made outside a busy traffic
intersection outside Cafe Sagar at Nagpada on Friday afternoon.
Police commissioner A N Roy said, "We had stepped up vigilance since
last month after we received information that Kashmiri terrorists were likely
to sneak into the city and cause sabotage. Our men trailed them and arrested
them. We have seized a foreign-make 32 bore pistol, 20 detonators, five timers
and six live cartridges from them." Patrolling and stop-and-search operations
have been routinely carried out in the city since the attack on the Indian
Institute of Science campus in Bangalore.
Police claimed the suspects had been living in the suburb of Mira Road for
the last few days. They had come to Nagpada to meet an associate when they
were intercepted. While two of them were carrying the arms in a rexine bag,
Qazi had concealed the detonators in a jacket which he was wearing at the
time of the arrest.
The anti-terrorism squad, which carried out
the arrests, summoned staff from the bomb detection and disposal squad to
their office to check if the seized material contained any explosives. But
Roy denied that the trio had planned a fidayeen strike (suicide attack) on
Friday. "We know they had come to Mumbai to expand the terror network.
We have still to find out more about their associates," he said.
Among the accused, Haji Qazi had visited Mumbai once earlier. But the others
did not seem familiar with the city. Sources said the suspects did not carry
mobile phones for fear of being tracked and used public telephone booths to
make calls. "We have informed our counterparts in Jammu and Kashmir and
a police team will be coming to Mumbai. The accused will be interrogated jointly
by the Kashmir police and the city police," said Roy.
