‘Was Tasked With Creating Sleeper Cells In Delhi’
New Delhi:
A top Jaish-e-Muhammed operative was arrested by special cell of Delhi police late on Thursday. The suspect, Sajjad Khan (27), was tailed for close to a month before being nabbed from near Lajpat Rai market. A Delhi court on Friday sent Sajjad to the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) till March 29.
Sajjad, a resident of Tral in Pulwama and a close aide of Pulwama attack mastermind Mudassir Khan, was wanted by the NIA in the aftermath of an attack on a CRPF convoy at Pulwama. The agencies are now looking for two other youths, Tanveer from Tral and Bilal from Gadpora, whom Sajjad had recruited as fidayeen.
Confirming the arrest, DCP (special cell) Pramod Kushwaha told TOI that Sajjad had been tasked to create a sleeper cell and a hideout for the cadres in Delhi. Sajjad had also conducted the recce of at least a dozen places in NCR on the instructions of his Pakistan-based handler.
Police tracked down a phone number generated by an application called TextNow that was used to communicate with Mudassir, who was gunned down by security forces in Kashmir on March 11. Mudassir had used the number +190460**123 generated by the app and sent a Whatsapp text to Sajjad hours after the Pulwama attack on February 12. This communication was intercepted and Sajjad’s number was eventually tracked down to near Daryaganj.
Sajjad was found to have checked into a central Delhi guesthouse. On March 21, he had stepped out to visit Red Fort when a team led by ACPs Lalit Mohan Negi and Hriday Bhushan arrested him.
Police said Sajjad had left the Valley soon after the Pulwama attack. “Sajjad was sent to Delhi specifically to carry out reconnaissance of important targets. He was supposed to radicalise and recruit Muslim youths of UP and other states and provide them weapons training, explosives and field craft. The cadres were then to raise funds and collect weapons. Sajjad was staying under the guise of a shawl vendor,” Kushwaha said. In the last week of February, the cell got an input that a Jaish man was in Delhi to establish a sleeper cell.
Sajjad said Mudassir had started visiting his house soon after the death of his eldest brother, Ishfaq. “He motivated me and my brother Shaukat to join the jihad. I was working as a stone-pelter and overground worker. I initially provided information about movement of convoys and cordon and search operations carried out by security forces in Pulwama. Impressed by my work, Mudassir instructed me to to spot young Kashmiri youths for fidayeen attacks,” Sajjad told his interrogators.
“On the day of the Pulwama attack, Mudassir contacted me on WhatsApp and asked me to leave the Valley and proceed to Delhi. I was to be in touch with my handlers on TextNow and WhatsApp only. Mudassir also sent me the video of Adil Dar —the fidayeen whocarried out the attack. I saw the video and deleted it from my phone,” Sajjad said.
No comments:
Post a Comment