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Three ISI-backed terrorists arrested in Delhi, record quantity of RDX seized

Delhi police last night foiled a major bid by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence to carry out serial bomb blasts in the capital during the coming Lok Sabha elections after they arrested three hardcore Punjab terrorists and seized the biggest-ever haul of 50.7 kilograms of RDX, besides a huge cache of arms and ammunition.

Addressing a crowded press conference in Delhi today, police commissioner Ajay Raj Sharma did not deny that the arrested terrorists had been sent by the ISI as part of a bigger design to spread violence in the country. ''This can be one of the modules which Pakistan may have followed to cause subversive activities after suffering the setback in Kargil,'' he claimed.

He also did not rule out the possibility of some VVIPs being the target of these subversives.

The seizure included 12 pencil timers, 24 detonators, eight grenades, three pistols, 140 rounds of ammunition, seven programmed-time devices, electronic timers, three remote without-timer devices and some fuse wires among other things.

At least 30 explosions could have been engineered from the explosives seized, the commissioner said, adding that the arrests and seizure had saved the capital from a major disaster.

Preliminary inquiries have revealed that the three were planning car bomb explosions besides adopting other modus operandi for blasts in the national capital to disrupt electioneering and target vital installations.

About the identity of the possible targets or the venues, Sharma said, ''we will come to know of the detailed plan after the interrogation of the terrorists.''

The three terrorists -- Charanjit Singh alias Sukha, Dilbagh Singh alias Bagha and Bakshish Singh alias Baba -- were arrested by the crime branch last night while entering Delhi from the G T Karnal Road and produced before a district court today which remanded them to ten days' police custody.

Sukha is the right hand man of Paramjit Singh Panjwar, chief of the Pakistan-based Khalistan Commando Force (Panjwar), the only active Punjab militant group at present. Bagha, involved in over 50 cases, was the mastermind behind the recent blasts in Northern India.

The KCF (Panjwar) was behind the two explosions in Delhi -- one in a train at Holambi Kalan railway station and the other at Chandni Chowk -- on June 3, Sharma said.

The arrests were made possible due to the extensive groundwork done during the past two months by the crime branch team in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh and Uttar Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir police have foiled a major plan by the ISI to trigger large-scale subversive activities across the country by arresting 11 persons from various states.

State director general of police Gurbachan Jagat said at a press conference in Srinagar today that the 11 agents were arrested by Jammu and Kashmir police from Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Full co-operation was extended by the police departments of the respective states in arresting them.

Giving details, Jagat said the state police had arrested three militants, two of them from Pakistan, owing allegiance to Lashkar-e-Toiba from Samba valley on July 31. Another Pakistani militant, identified as Ilyas, was killed in an encounter the same day.

On sustained interrogation, the three arrested militants disclosed a major ISI module to carry out subversive activities throughout the country. The ISI was in the process of recruiting youths in several parts of the country to identify possible targets and develop a network, he said.

The eleven arrested were among them. All of them were produced before the mediapersons today.

Jagat said the ISI module was busted following the arrest of a top Pak operative Amir Khan, alias Abu Waleed, who had sneaked into India about a year back.

Another Pak-trained militant arrested from the Samba sector on August 3 was Isalm-u-Din, a resident of Haryana. A pistol, two magazines and 15 rounds were recovered from his possession. Following sustained interrogation, it was revealed that Islam-u-Din was an important ISI operative.

He told the interrogators that he, along with Abu Waleed and Illyas was assigned the task of facilitating infiltration of trained militants from across the border through Samba sector and Rajasthan and arrange safe houses for them. They were to be then assigned specific tasks including causing explosions, kill VIPs and disrupt the coming elections, Jagat said.

UNI

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