Mumbai, September 17: Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Aslam Kashmiri had undergone training in Pakistan much before terrorist Ajmal Kasab and his nine partners were trained to carry out the November 26 terror attacks.
Kashmiri currently in the custody of the anti-terrorism squad of the city police underwent training in Pakistan’s Muridke in 2006. The handlers for him and the Kasab group were the same, the police said.
Kashmiri (27), who studied at Lucknow University from 2003-2005 had obtained a bachelor’s degree in Persian. “I met Zarar Shah and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, (LeT operatives in Pakistan) during the training. They had come to oversee the training programme,” Kashmiri (27) told the police. Shah and Lakhvi have been named wanted accused in the 26/11 attack.
However, the police is yet to establish if Kashmiri knew any of the 10 gunmen who terrorised Mumbai for three days. “We are questioning him and trying to establish his role in the arms haul case,” said ATS additional commissioner Sukhvinder Singh.
Kashmiri sent four youths to Pakistan’s training camp from Aurangabad and neighbouring cities. “Preliminary inquiries revealed Kashmiri sent four youths to Pakistan for training in terror,” ATS chief Krish Pal Raghuvanshi said. The youth, said police, would be given a 21-day training in assembling bombs and operating fire arms.
The Delhi police claimed to have seized an Amritsar-to-Nanded railway ticket, two packets of sweets containing chemical explosives, four detonators and two timers from Kashmiri. According to police officials, Kashmiri was supposed to deliver these explosives to someone in Aurangabad.
—Agencies