Third suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba man held in Punjab

CHANDIGARH: Punjab Police arrested the third Jammu and Kashmir-based suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant Javed Ahmed Bhat (29) on Friday from Pathankot while fleeing back to the valley.
The state police had earlier arrested two suspected LeT operatives on Thursday — Aamir Hussain Wani and Wasim Hassan Wani — while they were smuggling weapons into the Kashmir valley to carry out terror attacks.
The third suspected LeT operative arrested on Friday, Bhat is a native of village Shirmal in Shopian district.Bhat was intercepted while he was trying to flee, after he came to know about the arrest of his two other accomplices, in a truck (JK-22-8711) from Dhobra bridge in Pathankot on Amritsar-Jammu highway by the Pathankot police Punjab Police chief DGP Dinkar Gupta said Bhat and the earlier two arrested suspected militants belong to the same village in Kashmir and were childhood friends. These three friends had been doing the transport business together for the past over 2-3 years, and had been making trips to Delhi, Amritsar and Jalandhar. Bhat is brother of a Jammu and Kashmir homeguard Arif Ahmed. He was also selected by the unit in 2012, but had left the job subsequently.
During the investigation, Bhat has revealed that he had come with Aamir and Wasim from the valley to Amritsar to collect weapons consignment in the guise of bringing fruits and vegetables. The DGP said all three had come in two trucks and, after picking up the weapons’ consignment from near Vallah Road on June 11, Aamir and Wasim had asked Javed to stay behind in Amritsar to contact the weapons’ supplier on the directions of their handler, Ishfaq Ahmed Dar alias Bashir Ahmed Khan of the LeT.
The police are carrying out further investigation to identify further links and associates of the three men in Punjab and J&K .
The DGP said these arrests indicated widespread terror network backed by Pakistan-based militants and also corroborated recent intelligeance inputs indicating that Pak-ISI had been pushing weapon consignments and infiltrating militants from across the border into Punjab, and further to Kashmir valley for carrying out terror activities.