Three alleged JeM militants, planning terror strikes in Delhi, arrested
New Delhi: Three suspected members of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, arrested for allegedly planning an attack in the national capital, were remanded to 10-day police custody by a court on Wednesday as the investigators said their custodial interrogation was needed to crack their Delhi module. "The accused persons are sent to police custody till May 14," the court said.
During the proceedings, police told Additional Sessions Judge Reetesh Singh that Mohd. Sajid was arrested and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was recovered from him, adding that his hand was also burned while making explosives.
The agency while seeking 15-day custody told the court that the two other accused Shakir and Sameer were later arrested and some literature related to the terror organisation were recovered from them.
Delhi Police's Special Cell has recovered 11 batteries, two timer devices, three pipes and over 250 grams of suspected explosive substance from the trio's possession. They had got trained in making IEDs through online sources, Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Arvind Deep said.
He said, the troika's link with Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit was traced through "technical input". Shakir, he claimed, was to leave for Pakistan soon and was in touch with a relative of Maulana Masood Azhar.
During the interrogation, they were claimed to have told police that they had planned serial strikes in popular markets in the city and places with high footfall, Deep said. He said their source of finance and explosives is yet to be ascertained.
The trio and a few detained by the police are members of a Whatsapp group within which they allegedly shared details about the terror outfit and on December 20 they had organised a meeting at Sajid's east Delhi residence where "views of the outfit were propagated", Deep said.
The three have been arrested under provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC. Special Cell teams are conducting raids and more arrests are likely, Deep added.
Those who have been detained for questioning at the Special Cell office in Lodhi Colony here includes a youth, who works as manager at the workshop of an automobile company. While two of them are residents of Loni in Ghaziabad, others are from east Delhi's Chand Bagh locality, sources said.
The explosive substance has been sent for forensic examination. Further investigation is underway, police said.
Advocate M S Khan, appearing for the accused persons, opposed the police plea saying that the IED and the literature have already been recovered and there was no need for the police custody in the case.
Delhi Police had detained 12 persons suspected to be linked with a terror outfit planning an attack in the city and recovered explosives from their possession after a series of overnight raids in the national capital and neighbouring states.
The ongoing raids are part of a joint operation of Delhi Police and a central intelligence agency.
While a team of the force's anti-terror unit Special Cell zeroed in on two of the youths, while they were allegedly in the process of making improvised explosive device, from east Delhi's Gokulpuri area, names of the others emerged during their questioning and they were tracked down one after another in the wee hours today, a senior official said.
All of them are suspected to be members of a sleeper unit of a terror outfit, planning an attack in the national capital and other cities, the official said.
Special Cell teams are conducting raids in Delhi and UP, and several arrests are likely in the next 24 hours. The 12 are being questioned by Special Cell sleuths and intelligence officials.
