Man shot dead in Lucknow, others were self-radicalised, says U.P. ATS chief

People attend to a person injured in a blast on the Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train near Jabdi station in Shajapur district óf Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday.

The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) shot dead a man suspected to be involved in planting a bomb in a train near Ujjain. The encounter continued for more than eight hours in the Thakurganj area of Lucknow. The Hindu interviewed the chief of U.P. ATS, Asim Arun, who spearheaded the operation. Following is the excerpts of the interview:

Why did members of the alleged terror module go all the way from Lucknow (where they had rented a house) to Bhopal to plant a bomb in the train?

I don’t know.

You have arrested people linked to the blast on a train in Ujjain?

We have arrested three people who did not actually go to plant the bomb, but they belong to the same group. I would not like to make a guess.

You should ask the Madhya Pradesh police.

Uttar Pradesh ATS chief Asim Arun.

On Wednesday night when an encounter was on with Saifullah, who was killed, you said there could be two more people inside the house?

We have a fibre optic camera and we drilled a hole in the wall of the house where the encounter was on, and dropped the camera inside. It appeared to us that there were two more people. Actually it was a blanket lying on the ground, which we mistook. So we thought there could be more.

Pistols, pellets and ammunition were recovered from the Lucknow house. Where did they get all this from?

We have arrested two weapon suppliers — Fakre Alam from Etawah and Shailendra Yadav from Kanpur. They are the ones who supplied the arms and ammunition.

Do they have criminal cases?

I have no idea.

After declaring on Tuesday that the accused belonged to Islamic State-Khorasan province, why did you retract the statement today?

It’s a self-proclaimed module. They are self-radicalised, they were using Islamic State flags, but whether the IS announced that these men were working for them… we don’t have any such information.

What do you mean by self-proclaimed?

Whenever the IS plans an attack, they usually leave a video or a graphic message. We have not come across anything so far. We recovered a hand-painted black flag of the IS from the house.

Why didn’t the U.P. police ever get a wind about this module which was operating from this house?

They had rented this house two months ago and said they were students. The house belongs to a person who lives abroad.