Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Srinagar police have busted yet another Al-Falah type, multi-state network of Lashkar e Taiba in a painstaking, month-long investigation launched after the arrest of two Pakistani terrorists in March for allegedly receiving, guiding and arranging logistics for foreign terrorists infiltrated into J&K, which threw up a network of overground workers (OGW) not just in Kashmir but in other states like Haryana and Rajasthan.Abdullah @ Abu Hurrera @ Ahmed, a resident of Kasur in Pakistan’s Punjab who infiltrated via Gurez in 2010, and Mohd Usman @ Khubaib, who hails from Lahore and had crossed over to Baramulla in 2017, were apprehended a month back, based on human and technical intelligence, from Malerkotla, Punjab. Their interrogation revealed a network of OGWs that Hurrera had created over the last 16 years in south Kashmir and Usman since 2017 in Baramulla, and which was now being expanded to include towns in Haryana and Rajasthan, particularly those with a large concentration of seminaries with suspected connections to Pakistan and LeT. Hurrera and Usman, both A-plus category terrorists who have handled and commanded around 40 foreign terrorists in J&K over the years and were working together since 2023, had travelled to Nuh and Mewat, via Delhi, at different times.Searches across 19 locations in J&K, Rajasthan and Haryana so far have led to the detention or arrest of six OGWs in Haryana, four in Rajasthan and over a dozen in J&K. Sources said the purpose of the multi-state module was to create an LeT network outside of J&K with the help of Pakistani and LeT contacts; and use it to set up hideouts for LeT terrorists and eventually facilitate their exit from India with the help of forged documents arranged by the local OGW network. At least one Pakistani terrorist, Khargosh, is said to have escaped from Rajasthan, using forged identity and travel documents.The probe also revealed the funding and financial pattern of LeT.More arrests may follow in the days to come, with investigators not ruling out footprints in more states. The case is likely to be taken over by the NIA.
