NEW DELHI: Ten days after the attack on the Ramjanmabhoomi complex at Ayodhya, the Uttar Pradesh police on Friday claimed to have cracked the case, identifying two of the five slain militants as Pakistani nationals belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

In a related development, the Jammu and Kashmir police arrested militantsMohammed Naseem and Asif Iqbal alias Farooq in Mehdhar area of Poonch district. They allegedly supplied arms and ammunition to the attackers.

Director-General of Police Yashpal Singh told the media in Lucknow that the militants, identified as Mohammad Yunus and Mehmood, and their associates had rented houses at Devli in south Delhi and at Kishangarh in southwest Delhi and had been living there for an year.

While Yunus began selling vegetables in the locality, Mehmood joined an English-speaking course at Munirka. Three other militants stayed with them. They even helped one of the landlords, Ishwar Singh, when he was in need of money. Later, they began using his mobile phone to communicate with their handlers in Kashmir.

Giving details of the conspiracy unearthed by the Special Task Force of the U.P. police with the help of the Jammu and Kashmir police, Mr. Singh said the "operation," had apparently been planned for the past many months. It was set in motion in the third week of June when Yunus and his associates received arms and ammunition from Asif Iqbal and Mohammad Naseem at Panipat in Haryana.

Senior Jammu and Kashmir police officials said LeT operative Adnan in Srinagar had asked Asif to get a special "cavity" carved in his Tata Sumo. Five AK-rifles and explosives were stacked there. Asif drove the vehicle to Panipat and handed over the consignment to Yunus. He then returned to the Kashmir Valley.

The vehicle has since been seized. The police said they traced Asif and Naseem while tracking down the mobile phone numbers recovered from the person of one of the slain militants.

The militants, who called their LeT operatives minutes before the July 5 attack, destroyed the SIM card. But with the help of the unique identification number, the phone was traced to Naseem, who had bought the instrument at the behest of two LeT operatives Dawood and Umer in Srinagar. All of them were working for LeT area commander Mohammad Kari, said to be active in Kashmir.

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