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Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
The three Pakistani terrorists killed in an encounter in Lucknow on Wednesday planned to 'capture' Ayodhya and kidnap some VVIPs, Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police M C Dwivedi said.
Describing the early-morning operation as the 'biggest catch ever', Dwivedi told a press conference in Lucknow in the afternoon, "This was the first time three known terrorists carrying such sophisticated weapons and belonging to an international militant outfit were gunned down in a close encounter in UP."
He said the terrorists planned to carry out a "Red Fort-type" commando operation in Ayodhya "with the sole objective of drawing international attention -- even if it meant capturing the disputed site only for a few hours."
The terrorists were also planning to kidnap some persons of national prominence and eliminate others. "The objective was to get their associates released from Indian prisons," he said.
[A junior officer of the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force claimed that among the terrorists' targets were Priyanka Gandhi and the Karmapa Lama. Dwivedi, however, denied knowledge about this.]
The state police chief said that on the basis of evidence gathered so far, "these three militants entered India through Bangladesh some 10 months ago and were establishing a base here.
"We also have reason to believe that these terrorists established contact with some students in Bombay, Cuttack, Deoband, Calcutta, Delhi and Allahabad [about 200km from Lucknow]."
While intelligence sources had received information about the terrorists' entry into India a couple of months ago, the Uttar Pradesh STF received clues about their movement in Lucknow only recently.
"These militants received training in Afghanistan," Dwivedi said. One of them, Rashid alias Pappu, was stated to have been a personal bodyguard of Masood Azhar, chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, who was released from prison in the deal with the hijackers of Flight IC-814 in December 1999.
According to Dwivedi, "Rashid, an expert in preparing explosives, had also been earlier engaged in four separate encounters with the Indian Army in Kashmir."
Apart from the sophisticated weapons and ammunition recovered from them, two mobile phones and three SIM cards were also seized from the terrorists. The SIM cards had all been purchased in Bombay, which spoke of their connections there.
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