Zeenews Bureau
Bangalore: In a major move the city police foiled a terror plot and arrested eleven suspects on Thursday. Those arrested were allegedly trying to target important personalities including MPs, MLAs and a renowned columnist in a Kannada daily.
A foreign made 7.65 mm pistol, seven rounds of ammunition and some other gadgets were seized from the arrested, City Police Commissioner Jyotiprakash Mirji said at a joint news conference with DGP LR Pachau here.
Police sources said the persons arrested in a major operation included a journalist of an English daily, a doctor and a scientist.
Mirji said all the arrests were made by CCB police yesterday in Hubli in north Karnataka and Bangalore after gathering intelligence inputs for several days.
"It was a meticulously planned operation by CCB. The arrested had links with banned outfits like LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) and HuJI", Mirji said but refused to share further details remarking "in the interest of the security, case and investigations no more details can be shared at this stage".
According to Mirji all the suspects are “under the age of 30”.
He said cases under IPC sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 307 (attempt to murder), 379 (theft) and under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and Arms Act have been registered against the arrested.
Initial reports had said the four suspected Indian Mujahiddin(IM) activists involved in the 2010 Chinnaswamy stadium blast case were picked up by police.
According to highly placed police sources, one of the arrested had been trained in a Gulf country by the LeT on operating the terror module.
The gang was getting funds from a Gulf country, the sources said, adding that some cash had also been seized.
A laptop seized from one of the arrested has information about their targets who included a Bajrang Dal functionary, BJP MP from Hubli Prahallad Joshi, a mediahouse owner and two journalists.
The journalists had been targetted for penning articles `glorifying` Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, they sources said, adding the photographs of the two interviewing Modi was also found in the laptop, the sources said.
PTI
