Four suspected IM terrorists held from Rajasthan

Four suspected Indian Mujahideen operatives, including a Pakistani national, who were allegedly planning to carry out terror attacks during the general elections, have been arrested from Rajasthan, Delhi Police said Sunday.

The men were identified as Waqas alias Zia-ur-Rehman of Pakistan, Waqar Azhar, Mohammad Mahroof and Saquib Ansari, Special Commissioner S.N. Srivastava said here.

"We have arrested four terrorists... Waqas was arrested at the Ajmer Railway Station while coming from Mumbai. He disclosed the hideout of his other associates," he said.

The Special Cell of Delhi Police and the Rajasthan Police's Anti Terrorism Squad arrested the men named by Waqas from Jaipur and Jodhpur Saturday. Two of them are engineering students while the third one is a computer expert.

Srivastava said they were planning to carry out terror attacks in the country during the April-May Lok Sabha elections.

Waqas, a Pakistani national expert in making improvised explosive devices (IEDs), was wanted in connection with several terror attacks including the serial blasts in Mumbai in July 2011, the blast outside Jama Masjid here, at Varanasi's Sheetla Ghat, and Pune German Bakery blasts in 2010.

He was trained in making explosives in a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) camp in Pakistan.

"A diploma holder in food technology in Pakistan, Waqas came to India in 2010 via Kathmandu. He was received by Tehsin Akhtar alias Monu, an operative commander of IM, to carry out bombing in the country," said another police officer.

Tehsin was directly in touch with the IM founder members in Pakistan.

Police said following the arrest of Yaseen Bhatkal, one of the founder members of IM, by National Investigating Agency (NIA) last year, Waqas was hiding in various parts of the county.

"He went to Odisha, Bengal, Kerala and Maharashtra," said the officer.

During interrogation, Waqas told police that the purpose of his visit to Ajmer was to coordinate and oversee the preparations of the three terrorists of the Rajasthan module for carrying out a spectacular terror strike.

Police said they seized from the arrested men a huge quantity of explosives which include detonators, as well as boxes of nails.

--Indo-Asian news Service

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