SRINAGAR, 17 January 2006 — The Jammu and Kashmir police yesterday claimed to have killed the main conspirator of last year’s Delhi explosions in a north Kashmir encounter. Police also said another conspirator was injured in the operation that was launched after specific information from Delhi police.
Serial blasts on Oct. 29, ahead of Diwali, or the Hindu festival of lights, last year killed 66 people in the national capital.
“On specific information passed on to us from Delhi police, a well coordinated operation was launched by the state police and the troops of the Rashtriya Rifles,” senior Kashmir police officer K. Rajendra said.
“The operation in Khour village started early Monday morning. We have killed Abdullah Bhai alias Abu Huzaifa, the top Lashkar-e-Taiba commander so far and another terrorist, identified as Ali Mohammad alias Abu Zarar was injured and searches are on to locate him,” Rajendra added.
The officer said the two militants had been hiding in a house in Khour village of Pattan tehsil in Baramulla district, 40 km from Kashmir’s summer capital of Srinagar.
“They were challenged to surrender, but they started firing indiscriminately on the troops surrounding them. In the ensuing gunbattle, Abdullah Bhai was killed,” Rajendra said.
“Both the militants had planned the bombings in consultation with another Lashkar militant who is based in Pakistan,” said Rajendra, who identified the Pakistani-based militant as Abu Alqama.
In New Delhi, Karnal Singh, joint commissioner of police, confirmed that “the main conspirator of the Delhi blasts case had been neutralized.” But he added: “Our team is still pursuing the case, the operation is still on.”
Rajendra said troops and police were also hunting for the accomplices who went to New Delhi to carry out the bombings. “It is a continuing process. We have to get some more people,” he said.
The blasts in New Delhi occurred in two crowded markets and near a passenger bus days ahead of Diwali.
Some 220 people were injured, many of them badly.
Police have arrested at least three people in connection with the blasts, blamed on Lashkar which is fighting New Delhi’s rule in Indian Kashmir.
In another gunbattle, security forces killed at least two suspected members of Lashkar and recovered arms and ammunition in a forest some 70 km north of Jammu, the state’s winter capital, said a city police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
About a dozen rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence or its merger with Pakistan since 1989. The separatist insurgency has killed more than 66,000 people.
Meanwhile, the Indian Army said yesterday it would investigate allegations that a Kashmiri villager died from torture while being held by soldiers, an army spokesman said.
“The army has taken serious note of the allegations and a full inquiry has been ordered,” an army spokesman, Col. H.K. Juneja, said in Srinagar.
The man, Majid Parray, was picked up last week in the village of Inderkote, about 50 km north of Srinagar, on suspicion of being an insurgent and died Sunday. Relatives say his death was caused by injuries received during torture.
Another man picked up by soldiers in Inderkote at the same time, Fayaz Bhat, is undergoing treatment at Srinagar’s main hospital for injuries also allegedly received during torture.
Indian security forces have often been accused of committing human rights abuses in their fight against the insurgents. The army says human rights allegations are investigated and those guilty are punished.
The killings in Kashmir came as police announced the arrest of a man in connection with last month’s shooting at a prestigious science institute in the country’s technology hub, Bangalore.
The 35-year-old suspect, with aliases that include Habib and Mehmood Ibrahim, was arrested Sunday in the town of Almatty in the southern state of Karnataka and brought to the state’s capital, Bangalore, for questioning, said Ajay Kumar Singh, the capital’s police chief. A cache of explosives and some documents were seized with the suspect, Singh told reporters.
In the Dec. 28 attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, gunmen opened fire at a group of people coming out of a scientific seminar, killing a retired professor before escaping.
This attack was also blamed on Lashkar-e-Taiba and police earlier this month arrested the alleged leader of the group’s operations in southern India, Abdul Rehman.
Singh said police believe Abdul Rehman and Habib were working together to carry out a series of attacks on dams, power stations and transmission lines in Karnataka.
Officials have said the attack on the science institute was part of a broader effort by Kashmir militants to expand their fight from the disputed Himalayan region and target India’s scientific and economic hubs.
— Additional input from agencies
