2 J038;K men held in inter-state terror plot to strike Delhi

Plot New Lashkar-e-Toiba strategy: send young Valley men to Pakistan for training

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Union Home Minister P Chidambaram announced here today that the police had foiled a major terror attack in Delhi with the arrest of two members of the banned Lashkar-e-Toiba LeT. Inquiries by The Indian Express have revealed an elaborate inter-state surveillance operation that began in Sopore in the Valley a month ago which has led to the arrest of the two Kashmiri men and the discovery of a new Lashkar strategy: sending new recruits from the Valley to Pakistan,with legal papers for terror training.

Investigators said that Ahtesham Malik,one of the two arrested in Delhi,travelled to Pakistan last summer using his valid passport and trained for 40 days in bomb-making and explosives. His is the third case where a young man from the Valley was chosen and sent to Pakistan using legal travel documents to receive training from Lashkar. The second man arrested is Ahteshams cousin Tauseef Ahmad Pir who was picked up from Ranchi.

Incidentally,Ahtesham was arrested in 2007 in Sopore for his alleged links with the local Lashkar unit and then released. Subsequently,his family sent him to Jharkhand Ahteshams mother is from Hazaribagh. His father Farooq Ahmad Malik has built a house near his in-laws residence in Hazaribagh,police said.

According to Sopore Superintendent of Police Imtiyaz Hussain Mir,Ahtesham re-surfaced on the security radar during an investigation into Aakash Badar,the Lashkar commander in the Valley who replaced Abdullah Unny Unny was killed last year. Said SP Mir: On January 10,we called Tauseef Ahmad Pir then in Sopore and one Muzamil Amin Dar for questioning. They are both from Badambagh in Sopore. We had information that both of them have links with Aakash Badar. Police also questioned Tauseefs cousin Zubair Malik.

While Badar was killed in an encounter,the band of cousins,Ahtesham,Tauseef and Zubair were put under constant physical as well as technical surveillance, Sopore Superintendent of Police Imtiyaz Hussain Mir told The Indian Express. So on January 27,when Tauseef travelled to Hazaribagh where he was enrolled in a technical course Jamp;K police alerted Central agencies,providing them with his address,phone number and other details. At that time,Ahtesham had been living in Ranchi for past three years.

Agencies were alerted when Ahtesham suddenly left Ranchi for Delhi. He told his family back in Ranchi that he is going to Patna. After he arrived in Delhi,he went off the radar. We investigated all his contacts in Delhi and tracked him in Tughlaqabad Extension where he was living in a rented accommodation owned by Shafkat,another person from Sopore. Ahtesham was setting up some IED circuits to set off bomb blasts in Delhi, police said.

Delhi Police said they recovered explosives,memory cards,five mobile phones and passports. One memory card has a video from a training camp where they are seen assembling IEDs and using AK-47s. We were able to bust the module with the help of Jamp;K Police and Jharkhand Police. An attack was imminent, said P N Aggarwal,special commissioner of police Special Cell. Both were produced in a city court and have been remanded to 10 days police custody.

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Delhi Police sought our help as the relatives of one of the alleged terrorists live in Hazaribagh. The accused had come to meet them few months back, said G S Rath,Director General of Jharkhand Police.

With Vijaita Singh,Prawesh Lama in New Delhi,Manoj Prasad in Ranchi