Huji man's arrest spares another terror attack on Hyderabad

The capital of Andhra Pradesh would have witnessed yet another terror attack on this year's Republic Day had Mohammed Amjad alias Khaja, an operative of terror group Harkat-ul-Jihadi-al-Islami of Bangladesh, succeeded in his "conspiracy", police here claim.
    
Khaja had allegedly hatched a plan to unleash terror in Hyderabad but the police claimed to have it by arresting him from Afzalgunj bus stand here yesterday.
    
A senior police official said Khaja, who was made South India chief of terror outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji-Bangladesh), has confessed to interrogators that he had hatched a plan to create panic in Hyderabad on the occasion of Republic Day for which he had contacted his associates here.
      
Hyderabad had witnessed terror attacks, including Mecca Masjid blasts and twin blasts in 2007, which claimed over 40 lives.
      
According to the official, 27-year-old Khaja, a native of Malakpet locality here who allegedly has close links with terror outfits LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Indian Mujahideen (IM), was tasked by the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan to carry out some major action in South India.
     
"Khaja was supervising operations on recruiting youth for terror acts and accordingly he arrived in Hyderabad. We are investigating if he visited Bangladesh and India earlier also," the senior police official said.
    
Khaja, according to the official, was in Karachi and reached Colombo on January 15 before flying to Chennai and Hyderabad.