Lashkar militant with explosives held on R-Day eve

NEW DELHI: A suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba militant, planning to carry out attacks in the capital, was arrested on Thursday with 2.5 kg of deadly RDX here on the eve of the Republic Day.

Iftikhar Alam, hailing from Nalanda district of Bihar, was nabbed by Special Cell sleuths from the metro station in Seelampur in North-East Delhi at around 15.45 pm, a senior police official said.

Around 2.5 kg of RDX, two detonators and a timer has been recovered from his possession.

The arrest comes at a time when the capital is on a high alert in the wake of intelligence inputs warning of possible suicide attacks around Republic Day.

It is not immediately clear whether the arrested militant was here to disrupt the Republic Day parade on Friday to be attended by President APJ Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Police had earlier this month arrested two militants of Harkatul-Jihadi-i-Islami in the capital and seized around 1.5 kg of explosives from them.