Lashkar militant held for Darbhanga blast visited Pak

One of the two alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Hyderabad for the June 17 blast at Darbhanga Railway Station in Bihar had visited Pakistan and received training.

Hyderabad (Telangana): One of the two alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Hyderabad for June 17 blast at Darbhanga Railway Station in Bihar had visited Pakistan and received training. Imran Malik alias Imran Khan and his brother Mohd. Nasir Khan alias Nasir Malik, originally hailing from Shamli district in Uttar Pradesh and residing in Hyderabad were arrested by the NIA on Wednesday.

The NIA investigations revealed that Nasir Khan had visited Pakistan in 2012 and had received training from handlers of LeT in the fabrication of IED from locally available chemicals. No one was injured in the explosion in a parcel on platform 1 of Darbhanga Railway Station. The parcel was booked at Secunderabad and had arrived Secunderabad-Darbhanga Express.

The case was originally registered at Railway police station Darbhanga district. The NIA re-registered the case on June 24 and took up the investigation. The siblings fabricated an incendiary IED and packed it in a parcel of cloth and booked the same in the long-distance train from Secunderabad to Darbhanga. This was aimed at causing explosion and fire in a running passenger train resulting in huge loss of lives and property, said NIA.

Read: Arrested LeM chief was planning terror strike in Jammu city: Police

Preliminary investigation and examination of the accused persons revealed a transnational conspiracy hatched by top operatives of LeT to execute terror acts across India and cause large scale damage to life and property. NIA sleuths took the accused to their rented house in Mallepally late Wednesday and reportedly seized incriminating material from their premises.

The two brothers were running a readymade garment shop. While Nasir was said to be operating from Hyderabad for the last few years, his brother had joined him last year. According to NIA, they in touch with Pakistan based handlers of LeT over encrypted communication platforms. They were also allegedly getting online training to prepare explosives by using nitric acid, sulphuric acid and sugar.

Read:LeT operative arrested in J&K's Pulwama

Imran, who is the prime accused in accused, allegedly prepared an IED using a 50ml medicine bottle and concealed it in a parcel of ready-made garments. "He had set an approximate time of 16 hours to trigger the blast but due to the leak of the explosive liquid there was no explosion in the running train and while being unloaded at Darbhanga station it exploded but with a low intensity," police sources said.

The parcel was booked from Secunderabad railway station in the name of Md Sufiyaan on June 15. The investigations revealed that the accused used a forged PAN card for booking the parcel. The Counter Intelligence (CI) Cell of Telangana police's Intelligence Wing, Railway Police and officials of NIA questioned the suspects and finally zeroed in on the two brothers. The NIA said that it is continuing the detailed examination of the accused and investigation to unearth the larger conspiracy.

Read: LeT militant associate arrested in South Kashmir's Pampore

(IANS)