Militants involved in IISc, CRPF camp attacks arrested

Finally, after two years, the Bangalore police have made some headway in the case pertaining to the terror attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

Director general, Corps of Detectives, Dr Ajai Kumar Singh said that a militant named Sallahudin has been arrested in Lucknow and that he had assisted Abu Hamza, the mastermind of the IISC attack in December 2005.

The information regarding Sallahudin was obtained during the interrogation of Mohammed Riazuddin Nasir, a man recently arrested by the Karnataka police. During the course of the investigation, the police managed to unearth a major plan hatched by terror outfits to attack several places in Karnataka.

The CoD, while claiming that the arrest of Sallahudin was a major breakthrough, also said a team of the Bangalore police had left for Uttar Pradesh to secure the man. Dr Singh said that the UP police would first interrogate him, following which the Bangalore police would bring him to Bangalore after production of a body warrant.

Sallahudin, an alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba militant and a resident of Madhubani in Bihar, was arrested along with Imran and Farooq while they were trying to leave Lucknow. The UP police also picked up three other militants - Suhail, Arshad and Fayheem - in Rampur while they were heading towards Mumbai.

According to the UP police, Sallahuddin had masterminded the attack on the Central Reserve Police Force camp in Rampur on New Year's Day.

The Bangalore police, during the course of investigations, had found that Nasir had met the mastermind of the LeT attack Abu Hamza while he was training at Muzafarabad in 2007. He also revealed that Sallahuddin had assisted Hamza in the IISc attack.

Dr Singh further said that while interrogating Nasir, they found that he had been involved in certain activities in Hyderabad, but denied any role in the Hyderabad blasts as was reported in the media. The CoD chief also said that Nasir had informed them about the forest camps that they had been operating from, but they did not manage to find anything there.

He added that a team of the Hyderabad police will visit Bangalore on Monday to interrogate Nasir.

Dr Singh also said that a separate Anti Terrorist Squad would be set up exclusively for Bangalore in view of the security threat in the capital of Karnataka.