Delhi cops nab 4 Kashmiri youths with ammunition

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, October 4

The special cell of the Delhi Police has arrested four “highly radicalised” Kashmiri youths after getting inputs that they were planning terrorist attacks in the Capital, as arms and ammunition were recovered from them.

The police, in an official statement, said the accused were nabbed from the city’s ITO area and were found to be carrying four sophisticated pistols and over 120 rounds of ammunition.

The accused were identified as Altaf Ahmad Dar (25), a resident of Pulwama and Mushtaq Ahmad Gani (27), Ishfaq Majeed Koka (28) and Aqib Safi (22), all residents of Shopian.

“Ishfaq is the elder brother of slain terrorist Burhan Koka, ex-chief of the Ansar Ghajwat Ul Hind, an offshoot of the Al Qaeda in Jammu and Kashmir,” the police said in the statement, adding that the terrorist was killed in an encounter in Shopian’s Melhora area on April 29 this year along with his two other associates.

After his death, his elder brother Ishfaq Majeed Koka was approached by the cadres of Ansar Ghajwat Ul Hind to work for the terrorist outfit, the police said.

“On Friday, the police received information from its sources that a group of radicalised Kashmiri youths were in possession of a huge cache of arms and ammunition and would come to the ITO and Daryaganj. Thereafter, a trap was laid near the ITO and the accused were apprehended,” the statement read.

Preliminary interrogation revealed that Ishfaq was allegedly indoctrinated by present chief of the Ansar Ghajwat Ul Hind to work for the cause of Jihad. Ishfaq further indoctrinated Altaf Ahmad Dar, his cousin Aaqib and Gani, the police claimed in the statement.

As per the instructions of their handler, they came to Delhi on September 27 and were camping at Paharganj, the police said, adding that during their stay in the city, they collected arms and ammunition.