Jammu, August 4
A joint team of the Mumbai and the J&K police has arrested a terrorist of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Abdul Hameed, from a border village of the Poonch district in connection with the serial train blasts in Mumbai that claimed about 190 lives last month. Hameed is suspected to be the kingpin of the serial blasts.

Hameed was flown to Mumbai from here in a special aircraft of the BSF last evening.

The SIT alongwith a team of officers of the counter intelligence wing raided a hideout in the Sanai Potha area of Surankot in Poonch and arrested the LeT terrorists.

Initial investigations have revealed that the terrorist was involved in the serial blasts of July 11 at Mumbai as his identity card was found by the police from a scene of explosions in the train. He was initially questioned in the joint interrogation centre at Poonch.

The identity card was issued to Hameed by a private security agency of Mumbai which had engaged him as a guard for a residential area. He was found missing from Mumbai after the blasts.

Preliminary investigations are learnt to have revealed that Hamed created a network of the LeT during his nearly two years stay at Mumbai. He is learnt to have received signals from Pakistan for triggering the serial blasts in trains.

He was a close lieutenant of the LeT commander of Poonch, Abu Usama, who had despatched him to Mumbai to establish a module of the outfit.

The SIT obtained transit remand of four days from a court in Poonch and whisked him to Mumbai.

Meanwhile, three LeT terrorists and a jawan, Subhash, were killed in a gun battle in the Gundana area of Doda district last night.

The terrorists have been identified as Abu Zubair, Ashraf Ganai and Mubarak Ali.

Two AK rifles, three AK magazines, one pistol, 17 grenades, a wireless set and some other explosives were recovered from the encounter site.

Srinagar, August 4
Despite incessant rains, the holy mace of Lord Shiva today left amid chanting of Vedic hymns for the Amarnath cave shrine in south Kashmir to mark the ritual culmination of the annual pilgrimage.

Custodian of the “chharhi mubarak” (mace) Mahant Deepindra Giri led a group of sadhus, who offered the saffron-robed mace special prayers at its abode Dashnami Akhara temple at

Badshah Chowk in the heart of the city before leaving for Pahalgam around 8 am as per the scheduled programme, official sources said.

About 31 sadhus boarded a state transport corporation bus and several other private vehicles at the chowk and left for Pahalgam, where special worship would be performed before the onward journey on Sunday afternoon to the 3,880m high holy cave, the sources said.

On way to Pahalgam, which serves as the traditional base camp for the annual pilgrimage, worship was performed by the accompanying sadhus at Sureshwar temple at Sonawar, Shiv temples Pampore and Bijbehara and Martand-Tirth Mattan, the sources said.

Rains failed to deter a large number of devotees from visiting the temples and joining the mace on its journey. It is scheduled to reach the holy cave on August 9, marking the conclusion of the two-month yatra.

Although the weather along the twin tracks of Baltal and Pahalgam to the shrine was cloudy with intermittent rain, pilgrim traffic was going on smoothly, the sources said.

Meanwhile, official sources said a sadhu from Uttar Pradesh died of cardiac arrest at a hospital here, raising the death toll during the pilgrimage, which commenced on June 11, to 47.

Ram Sevak Dass (45) complained of acute chest pain at Panjtarni a few days back and was immediately rushed to SMHS hospital here where he breathed his last yesterday, the sources said. — PTI