New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh police on Friday claimed to have unearthed a conspiracy to kidnap a senior Congress leader when they arrested three suspected terrorists in an early morning crackdown in Lucknow.
The claim has fuelled speculation - not denied by the state police - that Congress MP Rahul Gandhi was the target of these terrorists.
The suspects, identified as Mohammad Abid alias Faate, Usuf alias Faisal and Mirza Rashid Baig, were trained in Pakistan and belonged to terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad, UP Director General of Police Vikram Singh told journalists.
While Singh remained vague on whether the Gandhi scion was the target, he said the terrorists were planning to abduct a top politician to exert pressure for getting 42 dreaded terrorists lodged in various jails freed.
The men were arrested by a team of the Special Task Force near the city’s Devkinandan hospital.
Police say they recovered Two AK-47 rifles, four magazines, 120 cartridges, three Chinese pistols, 101 live and 15 used cartridges of 30 bore, four kg RDX, five detonators and 16 Chinese grenades from the arrested men. Police sources claim the arrested men belong to the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
“We followed up on intelligence inputs and arrested these men. We have recovered a huge cache of arms including AK-47s, their magazines and hand grenades. They have been sent for analysis and we suspect they have RDX,” said UP Police DGP Vikram Singh.
Additional DGP, Special Task Force, Shailja Kant Mishra, who led the team that arrested the men also said he could not confirm whether Rahul Gandhi, who was here during the week, was their target. Mishra was quoted by news agency PTI as saying that the arrested men had “nefarious designs and if they had succeeded, it would have brought in disaster.” he said.
Meanwhile, National Security Adviser MK Narayanan told CNN-IBN it was too early to comment on the arrests. "It's too early to comment on whether any VIPs are being targeted. The arrests have jus been made and I will be speaking to UP police."
PTI adds: During preliminary interrogation, it was found that the terrorists were trained in Bahawalpur for six months to kidnap or take as hostage a leading political leader to create
disturbances in the country and mount pressure for getting their 42 associates in various Indian jails freed.
They were also trained for a week on how to keep their hostage and call two BBC journalists for negotiating with the Indian government, the DGP said. He also said they planned to use the journalists to put forward their demands for handing over one of the accused in the Kandahar hijacking case, Yusuf Nepali.
The trio was also shown video clippings of VVIP's public meetings and their movement on laptops.
While Mohammad Abid had been trained in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2006 in Muzaffarabad (PoK), Usuf had undergone training in Balakote in 2007 and Mirza Rashid Beg had been trained in Afghanistan in 2000, the DGP said.
Police also released the list of 42 terrorists they aimed to get released.
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