Bangalore cops in Kashmir on IISC terror trail

The arrest of Lashkar-e-Toiba south India chief Abdul Rehman and another suspected militant Mujeeb Deccani had hinted at a link with Kashmiri terrorists, sources said. Deccani has revealed that two militants had smuggled the arms and ammunition from J&K into Bangalore. Before his arrest, he had released a compact disc asking for guns and funds from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for jihad in south India.

Meanwhile in Bangalore, based on leads found following Rehman’s arrest, the police here continue to unravel LeT terror links in Karnataka.

The police have arrested Afsar Pasha of Chintamani in Kolar district and Mohammed Irfan from Mulbagal, also in Kolar, for being part of a wider LeT network planning attacks in Karnataka.

With the arrests of Pasha and Irfan the police have so far arrested four persons linked to the LeT’s southern network. One Habeeb alias Ibrahim was arrested earlier.

Only Rehman has however so far been arrested in connection with the IISc case. The other arrests are for cases of conspiracy against the country.

Pasha and Irfan who were questioned several times before being shown as arrested have led the police to a cache of explosives and ammunition. The police said they have recovered 17 electrical detonators, 20 gelatin sticks, 120 gel sticks, three hand grenades and 114 iron pellets at Chintamani, from information provided by the 28-year-old Pasha—an automobile mechanic.

The police suspect Pasha to have been involved in bomb blasts in 2003 in the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka, where he is also said to have trained as a jihadi. A close associate of Rehman, whom he met in Saudi Arabia, Pasha, had been in India for the past two months.

Irfan is reportedly a native of Bareily in Uttar Pradesh. He had been working in Mulbagal as an imam for the past year.