2 Jaish terrorists arrested by ATS in Deoband, role in Pulwama attack to be ascertained: UP DGP

Two Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists were detained by the Uttar Pradesh ATS on Friday. A shopkeeper and 12 students, including 2 from Kashmir, were also detained in an ATS operation at Deoband. The ATS team had some inputs and on the basis of these, a private hostel located near the Khankah police station was raided. The Director General of Police (DGP) said, the Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist was identified as Shahnawaz Ahmad Teli and was responsible for recruiting terrorists on the orders of Jaish. He is a resident of Kulgam in Jammu and Kashmir and will be interrogated on the Pulwama terror attack. The other terrorist has been identified as Aqib Ahmad, a resident of Pulwama. Two .32 pistols and 30 bullets have been recovered from the terrorists. Provocative videos also recovered from Shahnawaz.

The DGP also said that Shahnawaz was an expert in using a grenade. The police will interrogate how many terrorists were recruited by him and what were their targets. They will also find out if the two arrested terrorists had any role in the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed in the Jammu-Srinagar highway on February 14.

Sources have also revealed that before the Pulwama attack, the Maulana Masood Azhar-led Jaish-e-Mohammed wanted to carry out a terror operation in national capital Delhi, according to sources. The Delhi Police and the military agencies have laid hands on an audio clip in which Masood was heard provoking Kashmiri youths against India and to carry out terror attacks. The plan was made by Abu Bakar.

On January 24, the Delhi Police and the military intelligence arrested one Abdul Latif Gani from the Rajghat area in Delhi. On his cues, another person identified as Hilal Ahmad Bhatt was arrested from Kashmir. It was then that the security personnel got to know of the plan of a terror attack in Delhi.

On mapping the mobile phones of both the terrorists, it was found that after Masood’s nephews Usman and Talha Rasheed were gunned down by Indian security forces in 2017, he wanted to avenge their deaths and hence had planned an attack on Delhi.