Mumbai: A suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative was arrested on Sunday night when he arrived at the city airport after being deported from the United Arab Emirates. The accused, identified as Salim Mohammad Khan, is alleged to have been involved in terrorist activities since 2008, and was also allegedly in touch with a module of operatives working for the Pakistani Inter State Services (ISI), who were arrested earlier this year.
According to the ATS, he was deported as UAE authorities found him to be overstaying without valid docimentation. They informed the State ATS, who in turn informed their counterparts in the U.P. ATS. A State ATS officer said. “On the intervening night of July 16 and July 17, Salim Mohammad Khan arrived at Mumbai International Airport from United Arab Emirates and was picked up by officials from our Juhu unit. He was subsequently arrested and we are questioning him jointly with the U.P. ATS.”
The officer added that Khan, who is also known by aliases including Abu Amaar and Arif, first came under the scanner of multiple investigating agencies due to his suspected involvement on a fidayeen attack on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in Rampur, U.P. on January 1, 2008.
Another officer said, “Two of the accused arrested for the attack had said in their interrogation that Khan, too, was with them in a terrorist training camp in Muzaffarabad in 2007. A Lookout Notice had subsequently been issued in his name. Further inquiries have also revealed that he was in touch with Aftab Ali, an ISI agent who was arrested in Lucknow for espionage in May this year, providing him instructions as well as funding.”
Aftab's arrest had also led to the arrest of two accused from Mumbai, who were allegedly providing financial aid to ISI agents at the behest of their ISI handlers. Khan is currently being interrogated and will soon be handed over to the U.P. ATS for further interrrogation.
In Lucknow, Inspector General of UP ATS Aseem Arun said that after the arrest of ISI agent Aftab from Faizabad on May 3, 2017, the ATS had come to know that Salim Khan used to pass on directions to him and also send him money from abroad.
Arun said that two people, Kausar and Shareef, arrested in connection with the attack on CRPF camp, had told the U.P. police that Salim Khan had got training with them at a terror camp in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan—occupied Kashmir in 2007.
The attack on the CRPF camp in January 2008 had left eight persons dead and five others injured after two militants, dressed in CRPF uniforms, infiltrated the recruitment centre in Ramput early in the morning. — With PTI inputs
