Delhi blasts: Lashkar ‘link’ is MNC executive

The suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba operative Tariq Ahmad Dar, who was picked up by a Delhi Police team from Srinagar as a “crucial link&#148...

The suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba operative Tariq Ahmad Dar, who was picked up by a Delhi Police team from Srinagar as a “crucial link” in the Delhi triple blasts case, isn’t a product of a madarsa.

Dar, 31, whose arrest was first reported by The Indian Express yesterday, lives in a three-storey house in the affluent Solina neighbourhood of Srinagar. A “gold-medallist” and a postgraduate in chemistry, he works as an executive for a multinational. He is married and has a daughter.

Six months ago, sources said, he was arrested when police recovered a grenade and Rs 8.5 lakh in Saudi riyals from him. “He was in custody for 32 days and was released on bail,” a senior police officer told The Sunday Express. “Earlier, he had been involved as an over-ground worker with militants, too,” the officer said.

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Dar, investigators said, was a key conduit for hawala transactions to finance militants. The J-K Police, however, say they do not have any information about Dar’s involvement in the Delhi blasts. They were unaware that he was picked up from his car on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Galandhar.

“It is impossible that my son can have any links with the militants,” said father Ghulam Qadir Dar. His wife admitted he was once picked up by the police. “His friend in Saudi wanted to set-up an X-ray plant here. Perhaps, he gave him money.”