August 27, 2009 1:22:09 am
Two officers from the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) will travel to New Delhi to question a suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant arrested in the Capital.
Mohammed Aslam alias Salim alias Yusuf,26,was arrested while boarding a train to Nanded. He was carrying four detonators,two timers and two kilograms of explosive chemicals,concealed in boxes of sweets. He has allegedly told the police that he would have gone to Aurangabad and handed over the explosives to two men. The police said he has named the two.
The Mumbai police suspect that he would eventually have arrived in the capital. He is from Poonch,Jammu,and believed to have been trained in suicide attacks. The police suspect could have been targeting the Ganesh festival crowds.
ATS chief K P Raghuvanshi said. Two officers will leave for Delhi tomorrow morning. Any further course of action can be decided based on the questioning.
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Police said that primary investigations have revealed links in both Maharashtra and Gujarat. The youth is involved in some criminal cases there. We need to take him to both states so that his accomplices can be identified and flushed out, an official said. A team from Gujarat,too,will travel to Delhi.
The arrested youth was allegedly carrying a Jammu and Kashmir identity card with the name Salim Mohammed besides a Pakistani passport with the name Yusuf. He was produced in a Delhi court and remanded in custody till September 9.
The Mumbai police,meanwhile,have reviewed plans for the Ganesh festival,with Thursday being the first big day of immersion. We have received inputs from our New Delhi counterparts. We have started preventive drills and made some changes in the security plan after reassessing the situation, said Himanshu Roy,JCP (Law and Order).
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