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| India-Pakistan | ||
| A bank robber’s arrest cracks J&K terror net | ||
| 2005-12-03 | ||
The arrest of a bank robber on Wednesday has led the J&K Police to the network behind eight major militant strikes. These include the recent assassination of the junior Education Minister, the attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s public rally and several suicide attacks in Srinagar. The robber who landed in the police net on November 30 told them about a network of militant conduits who were members of the youth wings of the National Conference and Congress, operating from a high-security official accommodation for protected persons.
Police caught the robber by sheer chance. A group of four robbers had come to the downtown branch of a local bank, held the staff and people hostage at gun point and looted around Rs 12 lakh from the cashier. But as they fled, one of them slipped and fell and was caught by a group of angry people. The man—later identified as Mushtaq Ahmad—was immediately handed over to the policemen who rushed in from a nearby checkpoint. ‘‘Mushtaq was questioned and soon he spilled the beans. What he told us shocked everybody. He gave us leads about a network that included political activists under government protection, operating from a high-security hotel room allotted to one of them,’’ a senior police officer says. ‘‘They had been ferrying and helping fidayeens to carry out strikes in the city and their activity had gone unnoticed.’’ The officer said they helped to smuggle in the fidayeens to assassinate Education Minister Ghulam Nabi Lone. ‘‘We immediately sounded an alert and conducted raids everywhere. Within hours, we had captured most of the men in the network. We later killed three Pakistani militants as well,’’ he said. Mushtaq led the police to Shabir Bukhari and Shakeel Ahmad Sofi, both from Kreeri in Baramullah. They were travelling in their Gypsy, that was used frequently for ferrying fidayeens, when they were intercepted. Police say Bukhari and Sofi were also involved in the bank robbery which they had planned without consulting the Pakistani militants. ‘‘This robbery was not part of the militant itenary. Three of them were, in fact, waiting to execute another major fidayeen attack on Doordarshan and Radio Kashmir building,’’ says the officer. Police say that Sofi had secured the membership of Youth National Conference and was alloted a room in the high-security Dolphin hotel where the government has put up political activists who face a threat to their lives. National Conference leader Ali Mohamamd Sagar, however, denied that Sofi was a member of the organisation. Bukhari, a lawyer, is a member of the Youth Congress but J&K Congress president and minister Peerzada Mohamamd Syed denied that he was a member.
They took the fidayeens on a recce on October 8. Police say the operation was postponed by a week on the instruction of Bilal, a militant commander, who called Sofi on his mobile phone. ‘‘Then again on October 18, the duo smuggled the two fidayeens inside the high-security colony from the main gate,’’ he says. One of them was killed at the gate of Tarigami’s residence while the other had sneaked into Education Minister Lone’s residence and killed him. The police officer says that the militant who escaped called up Sofi, who along with Bukhari picked him up and took him to Bandipore. Police say Sofi and Bukhari have been running this network for one and half years. According to them, the other attacks they helped organise include: • The attack to disrupt the public rally of Prime minister Manmohan Singh on November, 17, 2004. | ||
| Posted by:john |