The three suspects being taken to the Kalachowkie police station on Friday2 of his family died trying to snap terror links
By M Saleem Pandit & Mateen Hafeez/TNN
Sopore/Bandipora/Mumbai: One of the three alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives arrested in Mumbai on Friday is a National Conference councillor in Sopore; the party shares power with the Congress in the state.
Family members of Arshad Ghulam Badroo claimed he was innocent but his colleagues said his life was a tad iffy. Arshad owns Badroo Traders, a general store near Jamia Masjid in Sopore. Salesman Javid Ahmad said.
Arshad went on a vacation to Delhi on December 20. “But we have no knowledge of his being in Mumbai,’’ he said, adding that Arshad did not respond to his family’s frequent calls for the past week.
“The family came to know about his arrest on Saturday when someone from Mumbai called,’’ Ahmad said.
The extended family, however, has had strong militancy links. Arshad’s cousin (his maternal uncle’s son) was a militant and was killed by unidentified gunmen three days ago. His brotherin-law, Abdul Majid Dar, used to be a Hizbul Mujahideen commander before he initiated dialogue with the Centre in June 2000 after declaring a ceasefire. He, too, was killed by militants. Sister Shamim Badroo, who married Dar in 1998, crossed over to Pakistan for training in a mujahideen camp. But, after being widowed, she (a doctor) took up work at the G B Pant Hospital, Srinagar.
Arshad’s elder brother, Ishtaq Ahmad Badroo, and his mother were on a condolence visit to the slain youth’s place in Bandipora on Saturday. They refused to comment on the arrest.
The two others arrested along with Arshad were Khursheed Gani Lone alias Lala and Ramzan Wahab Qazi alias Haji. Both are wanted by Jammu & Kashmir Police on terror charges; Lala runs a medical store in Bandipora and Haji is a developer. Families of both denied the terror charges.
The 27-year-old Arshad was elected to the Sopore Municipal Council in January 2005 on an N C ticket. But, contrary to the claims of his family, fellow councillors have raised doubts over Arshad’s activities. SMC chief Gulam Rasool Dar said: “Arshad never visited the council office and I have seen him only once.’’ SMC executive officer Mohammad Latif, too, said Arshad’s “activities were suspicious’’. Officials in Mumbai said Badroo and Lala were initially business contacts. “Haji married another woman 12 years ago before divorcing his first wife. He has six children, including a daughter, and the eldest son is an engineer in Baramullah,’’ Sunil Deshmukh, one of the investigators, said.
The three speak only Kashmiri which is proving an obstacle in interrogation.
‘We awaited orders after arrival’
Mumbai: The three terror suspects, Khursheed Gani Lone alias Lala, Ramzan Wahab Qazi alias Haji and Arshad Gulam Badroo, had headed for Mumbai on January 3 on Salahuddin’s orders.
They were told that further instructions would follow once they reached the city. But Lala, Haji and Badroo clammed up after that, giving police no information about their plans or intended targets.
The three were caught on Friday outside Cafe Sagar at Nagpada junction in south-central Mumbai with 20 detonators, five timers, five electronic circuits, a .32-bore Wilson pistol and six live cartridges. But what investigators found intriguing was that they carried with them just Rs 1,840.
Also found (with Lala) was a mobile phone, having a Mumbai SIM card. Officials say they will approach the cellular serviceprovider to get details of the calls and SMSes made or received on that phone.
A diary seized from Haji’s possession contains some pages written in Urdu and Kashmiri but the police are still to decode the contents. Haji was also carrying a telephone index and some business cards. Railway tickets (for January 3) for the journey from Kashmir to Mumbai and suburban train tickets were also found.
One of the seized timers was found to bear the number 158090397 on one side and 1.2/890 on the other side. Another timer showed the nu m b e r s 160235572 and 1.2/136. The seized articles were initally Xrayed by the bomb disposal and detection squad (BDDS). “All the seized articles will be sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory at Kalina (in Santa Cruz) and later to the National Bomb Data Centre at Manesar in Haryana,’’ ATS deputy inspector-general Jai Jeet Singh said.
More arrests were likely soon, he indicated. “The investigation is in the initial stages and we don’t want to disclose anything right now. But there will be more developments soon,’’ Singh added.
The public prosecutor had sought their custody on the ground that the police wanted to nab Salahuddin, said to be the LeT’s J&K commander.
“We want to know who their accomplices in Mumbai are and what their targets would have been. We want their custody for a thorough investigation to find out about the expansion of their terror network in the city,’’ the police stated in the remand paper.
“We know that the articles were brought in from Jammu and Kashmir,’’ police commissioner A N Roy said. This is the second big operation unearthing LeT links in the city. A team led by encounter specialist Pradip Sharma had, in March 2003, gunned down three alleged LeT men (Lahore resident Abu Sultan, Karachi resident Abu Javed and Kashmiri Iqbal Vani) near the Goregaon flyover.
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