The Hindu : New Delhi News : Slain Pak. militant had Indian driving license

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 08, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Slain Pak. militant had Indian driving license

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, MARCH 7. The Special Cell of the Delhi police has recovered two driving licences which were obtained by one of the two alleged Pakistani militants gunned down in the encounter in West Delhi on Saturday, revealing that he had been trying to obtain papers showing him as an Indian citizen.

According to the Joint Commissioner of Police, Karnal Singh, the driving licences were recovered along with other documents from the hideouts of the terrorists at Suraj Vihar and Zakir Nagar. "They carried the photograph of the Pakistani militant, Shahnawaz, and had been apparently been issued at Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh," he said.

The licence purportedly issued from Jamshedpur is in the name of Mohammad Aafan, a permanent resident of Patna in Bihar, while the one from Aligarh is in the name of Ghulam Hussan, a permanent resident of Gaya in Bihar.

A scrutiny of diaries seized during the operation revealed that that the militants had created codes for Indian Military Academy (college), gelatine sticks ("behan ka beta"), weapon collection points (mobile shop), battery (airbus), assault rifles (3310), general leader (uncle), airport (`bade bhai ka shop') and currency (IH) for "safe'' communication between them either through satellite/mobile phone or through e-mail. The police have found that the militants had their contacts in the Capital, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Enquiries on Sunday revealed that the militants had hired the Zakir Nagar hideout in the first week of January and the Suraj Vihar hideout about a fortnight before three of them were killed in the encounter on Saturday. Also, the police have found that the Maruti Zen allegedly recovered from the slain militants had been bought from a car-dealer in East Delhi on January 19. The car-dealer identified Shahnawaz as the person who had paid Rs. 1.10 lakh for the vehicle. The Lashkar operative in police custody, Hamid, disclosed that the vehicle was to be used in the attack on the Indian Military Academy in Dehra Dun.

In another development, a Special Cell team today raided the Western Uttar Pradesh hideout of Salim aka doctor who had initiated Hamid, a resident of Seelampur in North-East Delhi, to work for LeT two years ago. On the basis of the description provided by Hamid, the police are planning to prepare Salim's portrait. Hamid, who is believed to be one of the key figures in the module which had been entrusted with the task of attacking the IMA and software companies in Bangalore, is being interrogated to know about other Lashkar operatives suspected to have made hideouts in and outside the Capital.

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