JOIN USCops foil LeT strike in city
After the arrest of alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist Mohammad Shahid, who is an imam of a mosque in Mewat, Delhi Police special cell claimed to have busted an LeT cell spread across Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan and foiled a terror attack in the city.
Another imam of Mewat, suspected to be Shahid’s accomplice and mastermind, is on the run.
Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Friday said, “We were trailing this man for the last one week and he is now with us. We worked silently and I applaud our men for this feat.”
Police said in November end, a secret information was received that known LeT terrorist Javed Baluchi of Pakistan had been in touch with a module in Mewat, Haryana. “A conspiracy to carry out a terrorist strike in the Capital was being hatched,” said a Delhi Police statement on Friday.
“It was also found that a member of this module was moving in Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan. An FIR was registered with special cell and investigation was taken up,” it said.
During investigation, accused Shahid, 28, resident of Nuh district in Mewat, who was working as a maulvi in Noorani Masjid in village Choti Mewli, was arrested.
“The accused disclosed that he had joined the current module of LeT about six or seven months ago. He was being handled by local Mewat-based handlers, who were instructed by senior Pakistan-based LeT commanders,” a Delhi Police statement said.
Police said he was given the job of arranging logistics and communication for the terror attack.
According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, a diary has been recovered from Shahid that gives details that they were at an advanced stage of planning a terrorist strike at prominent market places in Delhi.
The module was obeying orders from Javed Baluchi, who had hatched the entire conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack in Delhi, he added. During interrogation, Shahid said he was roped in the LeT module by an another imam who is the main conspirator.
Shahid met Baluchi during his two visits to Pakistan, Yadav said. Shahid’s name cropped up while intercepting Baluchi’s phone calls, he added.
“The remaining members of this terrorist module have gone underground. They have been identified,” police said.