Police suspect LeT militants were planning to target the 150th anniversary celebrations of the 1857 uprising to be held at the Red Fort next month.
NEW DELHI: The arrest of three Lashker-e-Taiba militants seems to be just the tip of the iceberg as it was revealed on Friday that more militants have sneaked into the Capital and their target could be the Red Fort.
Their interrogation has revealed that they were working on the instructions of Abu al-Qama, the mastermind of the 2005 pre-Diwali blasts in the capital, and were here possibly on a recce mission here, police claimed.
It also came to light that there was one more person, possibly a LeT operative, at the Dilli Haat on Thursday night who was tasked with taking the Pakistani militant to a hideout in the capital after collecting the explosives.
"The Pakistani militant Abu Qasim was brought here from Patna by one Raj. He had reached Patna from Nepal. His job was to collect the explosives and Raj then was to take him to a hideout," Joint Commissioner of Police Karnal Singh said.
Police claimed it has the profile of Raj, who vanished in thin air last night, and were planning to release his sketch. It has also launched a frantic search to trace the other militants and their hideout in the capital.
Though the arrested militants "do not seem to know the exact plot", police suspect they were planning to target the 150th anniversary celebrations of the 1857 uprising to be held at the Red Fort next month.
"It is possible that some more militants are hiding in the Capital because Qasim told us that Raj was to take him to a hideout here and wait for further instructions from Abu al-Qama. We are working on it," Singh added.
According to police, Qasim was an expert in bomb making and had received training in handling of arms and ammunition in Pakistan.
Significantly, Qasim took the Karachi-Kathmandu-Patna route to reach the capital. "Earlier militants used to enter India through Kashmir. Now they are coming from Bangladesh, Nepal and are even using the sea route," Singh said.
Police claimed to have recovered two kg of RDX, three electronic detonators, an electric timer and two hand grenades from Abu Qasim, Shafaqat Iqbal Mir and Shabbir Ahmed, both residents of Doda, after their arrest on Thursday night.
Police officials described Qasim as a resident of Punjab in Pakistan. "He had reached Nepal from Karachi. In Nepal he met one Vinod who took him to Patna and introduced him to Raj. They then arrived here by the Magadh Express," he said.
Interestingly, police said Raj and Qasim reached Delhi by 12.30 p.m. on Thursday and then they roamed in Old Delhi area for sometime before taking an autorickshaw to Dilli Haat to meet Shafaqat and Shabbir.
The other two were working on the instructions of Abu Omar, LeT's operational chief commander in Jammu. "The whole operation is being planned by Abu-al Qama. Both Abu Qasim and Abu Omar were working for him," Singh added.
"It seems Raj knows the topography of Delhi well," he said and replied in the negative when asked whether the arrested were on a suicide mission.
While Qasim joined LeT in 2002, Shafakat told police he began working for Harkat-ul-Jihadi in 2002 and came into contact with Laskher in 2003, police said.
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