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Hyderabad on High Alert as Two Held, Explosives Seized
 Police here yesterday foiled a plan by Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed to trigger New Delhi-like serial blasts by arresting two suspects and recovering a huge quantity of explosives from them. Suspects Shakeel and Syed Haji were arrested. They later told the police they were planning to target police headquarters and Hitec City, the IT hub. The duo had links with Pakistanâs Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and terror groups backed by it like Jaish-e-Mohammed, police said.
| Hmmm... Usually it's LeT. I guess the Deobandis are feeling left out of the stew of viciousness... |
Police said they were looking for more suspects and asked people to be on high alert and cooperate with security agencies. The alert was sounded hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singhâs arrival to inaugurate the Indian Science Congress. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and top scientists of India will attend the five-day event, beginning today. Additional Police Commissioner (Crime) Rajeev Trivedi, who produced the duo before the media, said they were part of the group behind the suicide bomb attack on the Police Task Force headquarters in the city on Oct. 12 last year. Two people including the suicide bomber, reportedly a Bangladeshi, were killed in that attack.
| The two JeM guys, of course, were too important to the movement to do the booming themselves... |
According to Trivedi, the seized explosives include a highly explosive bomb.
| As opposed to a lowly explosive bomb? |
âThe most dangerous thing about the bomb recovered from Shakeel is that it was connected to a cell phone. It means that it could be triggered from anywhere,â he said.
Shakeel was a close follower of Maulana Naseeruddin who was arrested by Gujarat police in 2004 for involvement in the killing of former Home Minister Haren Pandya. The explosives were ready between May and September last year and the suspects intended to use human bombs. However, they could get only one bomber, who was employed for the blast at the task force office. The suicide bomber was identified as Mohatasam Billa alias Dilan of Bangladesh.
"Hey, Mahmoud! We're lookin' for suicide boomers! You available?"
"Nah. I gotta wash my turban!" |
Yesterdayâs arrests and recovery of explosives followed the interrogation of Zahid, one of the three men arrested last month in connection with the task force office blast. Intelligence agencies had alerted police in Hyderabad a few days ago about possible terror attacks on IT facilities in the city. Police Dec .18 had arrested three men in connection with the blast â Ibrahim, Zahid and Kaleem. Zahidâs brother Shahid, who has links with Jaish-e-Mohammed, was the mastermind, police said.
| He was the one with the dome-like forehead... |
Police are also trying to piece together information from various sources to probe links among terrorist units operating in the city. Last week, police had arrested Mujeeb Ahmed, a local commander of terror group Hizbul Mujahedeen. He was released from jail last year after the government had commuted his life sentence in a case relating to the killing of a police officer and his gunman in 1992.
| That worked well, didn't it? And how's the police officer and his gunman doing? They're not dead anymore, are they? |
Police have not ruled out a link between this terror module and last weekâs attack on the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, in which a professor was killed and three people were injured. The tip followed the arrest of two men in West Bengal â a suspected Bangladeshi suicide bomber identified as Hilaluddin, and his associate Nafeequl, who were brought here from New Delhi on Sunday for questioning in the suicide bombing case.
| Nafeequl is an assistant suicide boomer? |
Posted by: Fred 2006-01-03 |
