The Hindu : New Delhi News : LeT militant had received weapons consignment

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

LeT militant had received weapons consignment

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, AUG. 17. The alleged Pakistani Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant who was gunned down in an encounter with the Special Cell of the police at Dwarka in South-West Delhi on Monday had come to the Capital in the first week of August and had already received a consignment of weapons to carry out a strike, a spokesman of the Delhi police said on Tuesday. The police are trying to trace his hideout, which is suspected to be in or around Dwarka, to recover the weapons.

Initial probe into the content of the e-mails sent by the militant operating under the code name, Abid alias Vicky, to his superior, revealed that he had received and stocked the weapons somewhere. However, the e-mails do not contain any specific target assigned to him.

The police recovered from Abid a small diary and a mobile phone, in which an Airtel SIM card had been installed. The Joint Commissioner of Police (Special Cell), Karnal Singh, said a driving license purportedly issued from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh in the name of Suresh Kumar was also recovered from his possession. While the police are trying to verify whether the driving license is genuine, they are also planning to raid the residential address of Rampur given in the license. "We have also contacted the Haryana transport department to trace the owner of the two-wheeler, which has a Haryana number plate," Mr. Singh added. It is learnt that the diary recovered from him contains some phone numbers apparently of the militant's local contacts.

This apart, the police recovered Rs. 4,000 in Indian and Rs. 100 in Nepali currency from Abid's possession. The possibility that Abid intruded into the country through Nepal is also being probed.

Investigations revealed that Abid frequented cyber cafes located in the Dwarka area, suggesting that he might have had his hideout there. In fact on Monday morning, he had been to the cyber café, Cyber World, where he again went around 9 p.m. and was coming out around 10 p.m. when the police challenged him and later shot him down during the exchange of fire. According to the police, the Lashkar militant fired 12 rounds from a .30 bore pistol while they fired 26 rounds at him from assault rifles. The police recovered two more magazines from his person.

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