UP blasts: 3 suspected HuJI militants held

In J&K, the state police on Saturday morning arrested one Sajjad-ur-Rahman, also allegedly involved in the November 23 blasts in court complexes in Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad, from Kishtwar district.

Giving details of the arrests made in UP, Additional Director General of Police, STF, Brij Lal said Tariq Kashmi (30), who is described as a Unani doctor, is a native of Shambhopur village of Azamgarh district and Khalid, a Madarsa teacher, hails from Mahatwana village of Jaunpur district. The police also recovered 1.250 kg RDX, six detonators, three cellphones and two SIM cards from them, he said. Confirming the arrest made in J&K, Lal said an STF team would be sent to J&K to bring back Sajjad.

According to Lal, the interrogation of the arrested has revealed that it was Tariq, along with other two terrorists, who parked the bicycles laden with bombs in Faizabad court premises and Khalid, along with two terrorists, had planted bombs in Lucknow court premises. In Varanasi, Mukhtar, the mastermind, along with his two associates carried out the operation. However, Lal refused to disclose the identity of six terrorists who accompanied Tariq, Khalid and Mukhtar in Faizabad, Lucknow and Varanasi, respectively.

Lal said terrorists had gathered at the residence of Tariq in Azamgarh district exactly six days before the execution of the blasts. “Four terrorists had visited Tariq’s house on November 17 this year. They communicated their plan for the blasts to both Tariq and Khalid Mujaheed. They told him that their one associate would bring explosive materials from Bangladesh and meet them in Varanasi,” Lal told reporters on the basis of information collected from the arrested. As per the plan, they had used local links to arrange bi-cycles that were used in the blasts, Lal added.

Sources in the STF said just a day before the blasts, Mukhtar had reached Mughalsarai railway station. “Sajjad came from Kashmir carrying manufactured bombs. He first handed over the bombs to local links in Lucknow and then went to Varanasi. Mukhtar is a frequent visitor to Varanasi city and he has a number of local links there,” a source in the STF said. As Mukhtar is an expert in planting bombs, the blasts in Varanasi claimed nine lives, they said.

Regarding Gorakhpur blasts, the STF said the terrorists had plans to execute the serial blasts on December 6 last year. “Khalid Kashmiri, who is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail, is close to Khalid Mujaheed of Jaunpur. Kashmiri had directed the UP unit of HuJI to carry out blasts in Gorakhpur city. Subsequently, Tariq had done a recce of the Gorakhpur city in order to select sites for explosions. However, they deferred their plan then for reasons best known to them,” STF sources said.

Finally on May 20 this year, Tariq went to Gorakhpur for doing a recce and he approved the plan for executing the blasts on May 22.

Apart from the one arrested in Kishtwar, another person picked up by UP Police a few days ago in connection with the serial blasts hailed from Ramban in Doda district in J&K. Similarly, one of the two arrested in UP today had been operating in Kishtwar area until few years ago.

— With inputs from Jammu