The national capital could have been terrorised by three serial blasts on Monday, if intelligence agencies and cops had not arrested four JeM terrorists.
NEW DELHI: The national capital could have been terrorised by three serial blasts in busy markets on Monday, if the intelligence agencies and the cops had not acted on time and arrested four terrorists, including an alleged Pakistani national, after a brief shootout late Sunday.
Investigators said that the terrorists had brought 3 kilograms of explosives, timers, detonators, Rs50,000 cash and US$ 10,000 that were to be used to carry out these blasts and escape from the city.
“They had come to Delhi to carry out three blasts on February 5. We are fortunate to have successfully averted this tragedy,” said Karnal Singh, joint commissioner Special Cell, who was heading the investigations.
He added that one of the nabbed terrorists, Shahid Gafoor (a Pakistani national), is not only an active member of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) but is also a fidayeen while the other three, Bashir Ahmed Ponnu, Fayyaz Ahmed Lone and Abdul Majeed Baba, are Kashmiris and acted as the foot soldiers of the outfit who were tasked to place the improvised explosives in the markets.
“We had received information in the first week of January that terrorists were planning to carryout multiple blasts in Delhi. With the help of intelligence agencies, we have managed to apprehend them in time,” he added.
Singh said that the main idea of the bomb attack was to repeat of the serial blasts that took place in the busy Delhi markets in October 2005. He also said that investigators were suspecting a hand of Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) for providing these explosives.
“We know that the two organisations share information and ammunition but we have not yet got any comprehensive evidence of their role,” Singh said.
The brief shootout between the cops and terrorists took place near the Ranjit Singh flyover in Connaught Place area in the heart of the capital. The terrorists fired around 12 rounds of bullets while the cops fired a total of 20 rounds although no one was injured in the gun battle.
The terrorists had reached near the flyover after getting down of Malwa Express, which they had boarded, from Kolkata. “The ammunition and money were smuggled from Bangladesh by Gafoor,” added Singh.
Officials said that Gafoor was wanted by the Indian agencies since 1998 when he had come to India for the first time and had carried out an attack in a camp of Rashtriya Rifles. “He then went back to Pakistan and returned to India in 2002 to carry out another attack,” he added.
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