Police foil plan to smuggle in explosives

MUMBAI: A plan to smuggle in a huge consi g n -ment of explosives from Lahore to Mumbai to set off blasts similar to the serial explosions of March 1993 has been foiled with the killing of three alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists in Jogeshwari on Saturday, police officials claimed.
The dead reportedly include LeT’s southern commander Abu Sultan and his associate, Abu Anwar Ali, both of whom allegedly are Pakistanis.The third person, believed to be a Kashmiri, is yet to be identified. Abu Sultan was planning a major terrorist operation in Mumbai, intelligence officials claimed.
“A huge consignment of explosives was to arrive on the western coast of Gujarat from Lahore in the next few days,’’ officials claimed. “Sultan was assigned the task of masterminding the serial blasts in Mumbai.’’
Sultan and his aide Anwar Ali had recently recruited several unemployed youths in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and sent them to Kashmir for training, officials alleged.
“The youths are being trained as fidayeens for attacking vital government installations, temples and for targetting politicians and VIPs,’’ a senior police officer claimed. Joint police commissioner (crime) Satyapal Singh said the police recovered a DVD from the slain terrorists.
The contents of the DVD are in an encrypted form and the police are seeking the help of computer experts to decode it. “We also came across certain e-mail addresses from the documents,’’ he said. The city police have contacted their counterparts in Jammu & Kashmir to identify the third man.
A team from J&K could travel to Mumbai to help in the identification. The police claim that the LeT, allegedly a front organisation for Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence, is involved in subversive activities in several parts of the country.
The four bomb blasts in Mumbai over the past three months, the killing of 24 Hindus in J&K on March 24, the murder of former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya in Ahmedabad on March 26 and a bid to blow up a major oil depot in Jammu on the same day indicate the ISI’s plan destabilise the country, officials claimed.
“The aim is provoke communal violence in the country,’’ a police officer said. The Mumbai police suspect that at least seven more LeT terrorists are hiding the metropolis.
“We will flush them out soon,’’ crime branch official said. Police commissioner R. Sharma has placed his officers and men on high alert. The police are also sensitising citizens on how act during an explosion and how to prevent blasts passing out handbills on the subject.
The police also conducted nakabandis and combing operations and rounded up anti-social elements as a preventive measure. Further investigations are being conducted under the supervision of additional commissioner (crime) Rakesh Maria and deputy commissioner (crime) Pradeep Sawant.