According to the ATS, the duo had planned to plant explosives at last year's edition of Sunburn in Pune
Alleged Hindu extremists Vaibhav Raut and Sudhanva Gondhalekar have told the anti-terror police that they aborted their plan to bomb Sunburn Festival in Pune last year because they feared that if caught out by its extensive CCTV surveillance, they wouldn't have been able to eliminate 14 people on their hit list, their interrogators said.
After reconnoitering the venue, the suspects realised that the commercial EDM festival was heavily secured with a network of closed-circuit television cameras and they did not want to risk being spotted as that would have compromised their plans to strike the other targets, officials from the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) said.
"After the recce, they realised that if caught, their module members might also come under the police radar. So they aborted the plan," said an officer.
The ATS arrested Nalasopara residents Vaibhav Raut and Sharad Kalaskar and Satara resident Sudhanva Gondhalekar on August 10 for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to carry out terror attacks. The sleuths claimed to have recovered crude bombs and arms from their possession in a series of searches.
Gondhalekar, a diploma holder in Mechanical Engineering, seems to be the leader of the arrested group, the ATS said on Sunday. "The arrested people were mostly foot soldiers. But we suspect that Gondhalekar's job was to recruit people for the module, train them and decide the targets. He was also in touch with Amol Kale, an accused in journalist Gauri Lankesh murder case," said a police officer.
While seeking the trio's custody, the ATS had told the court on August 28 that Gondhalekar and Raut had planned to attack the Sunburn bash scheduled to be held in Pune in December 2017, because they felt it was "against Hindu culture". According to the ATS, the duo had planned to plant explosives at last year's edition of Sunburn in Pune.
The popular electronic dance music event used to be held in Goa till 2015, and was shifted to Pune the year after.
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