NEW DELHI, May 5: The police arrested four suspected Khalistani terrorists at a toll plaza in Haryana and recovered a large quantity of arms, ammunition and explosives from them. They claimed to have told the police that they were going to deliver explosives to Maharashtra’s Nanded and Telangana’s Adilabad.
The key accused, Gurpreet, was earlier in jail, where he met one Rajbeer, who had links with Pakistan, the police said. Gurpreet and the three others arrested used to deliver consignments of explosives across India, the police said, adding the four have links with Pakistan’s espionage agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The arrests were made at 4 am at Karnal’s Bastara toll plaza while they were on their way to Delhi in a white Toyota Innova SUV. The other three suspects have been identified as Bhupinder, Amandeep and Parminder, all residents of Punjab.
Apart from a fully suited up bomb disposal expert, visuals show a military grade mini-rover was used to approach the SUV and look for Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). The four suspects had been taking order from another terrorist, Harvinder Singh, who handled them from Pakistan, the police said.
The four were given IEDs to be distributed across India. The suspected terrorists managed to supply IEDs in at least two places earlier. The weapons recovered from the suspects include a country-made pistol, 31 bullets and three iron containers with IEDs. Cash of ₹ 1.3 lakh was also found with them.
“Preliminary information suggests they were basically acting as couriers and transporting these arms and ammunition in an Innova vehicle and were headed to Adilabad in Telangana,” Karnal Range Inspector General of Police Satender Kumar Gupta said. “They will be produced before a court and taken on police remand, after which they will be questioned in detail,” he said. “Three containers suspected to contain RDX (explosives), firearm, a pistol and 31 round live cartridges have been seized,” he added.
(Manas Dasgupta)
