New Delhi, March 1 A Delhi court on Sunday extended the judicial custody of eight operatives of a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) module who illegally entered India and procured forged identity documents for 14 days.
The LeT operatives, seven of whom were Bangladeshi nationals, were produced before the court with heavy security presence, after their previous seven-day judicial custody ended on Sunday.
On February 22, in a major counter-terrorism operation spanning three states, the Delhi Police dismantled the LeT module.
Umar Farooq, Rubiul Islam, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Mohammed Saifiyat Hussain, Muhammad Zahidur Islam, Muhammad Litton, Muhammad Ujjal and Muhammad Umar were produced before the court.
The arrests followed coordinated raids in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, after investigators traced the group's involvement in putting up "pro-Pakistan" and "pro-terror" posters, featuring photographs of terrorist Burhan Wani at multiple locations in Delhi.
According to the police, the LeT operatives were planning a major terror attack in the country with the support of Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, and terrorist organizations based in Bangladesh.
The police claimed that the module was being handled from Bangladesh by Shabir Ahmad Lone, alias Raja, alias Kashmiri, a trained LeT terrorist from Jammu and Kashmir, who had previously been arrested by the Delhi Police's Special Cell in 2007 in a case involving the recovery of arms and ammunition, including an AK-47 rifle and grenades.
Lone, who hails from Kangan in Srinagar, had fled to Bangladesh after his release from Tihar Jail in 2018 and was working to revive the LeT's terror network in India by activating sleeper cells of Bangladeshi operatives residing illegally in the country, they said.
The posters put up in Delhi featured photographs glorifying the slain Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist Wani and carried messages, such as "India stop genocide" and "Free Kashmir", along with Urdu slogans translating to "We are Pakistani, Pakistan is ours" and "Kashmiri Ekjut-ta Divas".