American Center attack suspect held

PATNA/GAYA: A joint team of Bihar and Jharkhand police arrested American Center terror attack suspect Mohammad Sarwar from Dharmu Chak under Neemchak Bathani police station area, 60km from Gaya town, on late Friday night. Sarwar was also wanted in 2002 Hazaribag encounter in which two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) men were killed. Two motorcycle-borne men had indiscriminately fired at policemen outside the American Center in Kolkata on January 22, 2002. Six policemen were killed and 14 injured in the incident.Sarwar was declared an absconder in Hazaribag encounter case in Jharkhand. He had allegedly provided logistics support to the LeT men, SP (Hazaribag) Anup Birthare told TOI on Saturday.“We raided his native place after receiving information that Sarwar was seen there. We brought him to Hazaribag and, after brief interrogation, produced him before the local court before sending him to jail,” Birthare said and added that chargesheet had been submitted in 2008 and Sarwar was declared an absconder in the case.Birthare, however, refused to share the interrogation details.DIG (Magadh range) Saurav Kumar said Sarwar was not wanted in any case in Bihar and the state police were not aware of his antecedents. “As there was a court order for Sarwar’s arrest, the local police extended the required cooperation to Jharkhand police,” he said.