PUNE, 12 May 2006 — The Maharashtra government yesterday announced a cash reward of half a million Indian rupees, to the officials of the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Bombay police for their role in arresting three alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists and the seizure of a huge amount of sophisticated arms and ammunitions in Aurangabad
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R.R. Patil, soon after inspecting the seized arms and ammunitions, announced the reward at the state police headquarters in the presence of Director General of Police Dr. Pavender Singh Pasricha, Bombay Police Commissioner Anami Roy and ATS chief K.P. Raghuvanshi.
The present seizure of explosives and arms was one of the biggest since the 1993 Bombay serial blasts.
The four arrested Muslim youths Mohammed Amir Shakeel Ahmed Shaikh (30), Syed Zubair Sayed Anwar (26), Mohammed Muzaffar Muhammed Tanvir (24) and Muzaffar Zamir, the driver of the Sumo car, were brought to Bombay and produced before a judicial magistrate, who remanded them to police custody till May 24.
According to the police the three arrested Muslim youths, alleged to be associated with the LeT and the banned Students of Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were from Aurangabad.
A senior police official said the alleged terrorists had plans to engineer blasts in interior Maharashtra towns of Aurangabad and Beed in the Marathwada region.
They had formed two groups and traveled in two vehicles, one a Tata Sumo, which was intercepted after a hot chase, while the other was a Tata Indica car, with the other group, managed to escape. Ten AK 47 assault rifles, 40 magazines, 2,000 rounds, 50 kilograms of RDX, 10 magazine pouches and computer server cabinets, were seized from the Sumo vehicle.
On interrogation of the Sumo driver Zamir revealed that the Indica car had 8 AK 47 assault rifles, 1,800 rounds, 30 kilograms of RDX, and seven computer programming unit (CPU) boxes stuffed with other deadly weapons. Zamir also told the police that the arms and explosives were loaded at Ozhar in Nashik district and were meant for attacks in Beed and Aurangabad districts.
Meanwhile the police have also beefed up security in Ajanta and Ellora, both UNESCO heritage sites, which are frequented by foreign tourists.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Branch) in Pune, said that the city police were also keeping a close watch on suspects associated with SIMI.
