Preliminary investigations by the Delhi Police indicate that lashkar-e-Tayyeba (leT) was planning a bigger strike in the Indian capital after its chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed openly instigated his cadres to attack in India.
This attack was being planned to coincide with the festivities in New Delhi and other cities and also during incoming Assembly elections. Investigators are also ascertaining the link between the leT and Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) as the arrested dreaded criminal of leT, Abdul Karim Tunda, told the investigators that he had provided explosives to BKI and with the help of his logistics support, two bomb high-intensity were planted by the BKI in two cinema halls, Satyam and liberty cinema halls, in 2005 during the screening of Sunny Deol-starrer Jo Bole So Nihal, which left one dead and more than 53 others injured.
Police sources said Tunda was planning attacks in India, especially in the festival season in Delhi and they had targeted some temples and crowded markets.
“Before his arrest, 12 days ago, Tunda had called the young militants and members of the sleeper cell of Bangladesh and India for a meeting in the Uttarakhand’s Banbasa area close to the Nepal border. But he was arrested before this meeting,” police sources added.
It would be interesting to note that Tunda had managed to flee from the clutches of Delhi Police in 1995 after a Delhi Police team nabbed him from a house in Pilakahua. A mob soon gathered at the spot and freed him and even attacked the police personnel. Tunda was never seen after that escape.
“In almost all the blasts in India after 1998, Tunda had providing the logistics to BKI and he even trained many of them in preparing bombs with locally available materials like urea, nitric acid, potassium chloride, nitrobenzene along with the diesel and sugar and planting them at crowded places,” police sources said.
Tunda also disclosed that he had also provided the explosive to BKI in 2005, when two high-intensity blasts rocked two cinema halls in the capital during the screening of bollywood movie Jo Bole So Nihal.
“Tunda tried to cause serial explosions in India in 2010, just before Commonwealth Games but before executing the plan, police had arrested the militants from Chandni Chowk area,” a senior police officer said. After the arrest of Tunda, now the investigators also came to know that Tundau was the main mastermind, who trained leT terrorist, Aathesham Malik (24), how to manufacture explosive devices using readily available material like fire cracker powder.
Malik was arrested by the special cell in 2012 and he told the police that he was trained by leT to fabricate Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) using easily available cracker powder and sulphuric acid. “Tunda had also trained young militants in a pro-Khalistan group in bomb making and during training; he had strictly directed militants not to use cell phone much,” the officer added.
“In 1998, the Interstate Cell of Crime Branch, which was investigating the serial blast, had intercepted several calls made to lahore, Pakistan by the terrorist, who were directed by Tunda on their next plan. Investigators had intercepted a call where terrorist was caught while talking to Tunda, who was in lahore,” police official said, adding that later the arrested terrorist, Mohammed Amir, had confirmed in his disclosure statement that blasts were carried out on the instruction of Tunda and on his instances, police had conducted a raid in Maharni Bagh and recovered huge quantity of Potassium Chloride from Tunda’s brother. The investigating officer is most likely to use the recorded conversation of Tunda as
evidence against him.