Mumbai: Two more terror suspects, who are
the associates of the gang of trio which had yesterday
exchanged fire with ATS in Aurangabad, were arrested from
Maharashtra`s Buldhana district, police said today.
"Two more terror suspects Akheel Khilji and Mohammed
Jafar were arrested from their hideout in Buldhana district,"
a police official said.
The ATS had yesterday apprehended a fugitive suspect
in 2008 Ahmedabad blasts that claimed 56 lives after gunning
down his accomplice in an encounter in Aurangabad.
Yesterday, ATS officials had killed terror suspect
Khaleel Qureshi (20) and nabbed two of his aides Mohammed
Abrar Babu Khan (32), who is suspected to be involved in the
Ahmedabad blasts, and Mohammed Shakeer (32) after an exchange
of fire in Aurangabad. ATS head constable Aarif Shaikh Ismail
was also injured in his left shoulder during the encounter,
police had said.
Khilji and Jafar are associates of the same gang of
the trio which had fired at ATS officials yesterday, they
said.
The group, according to police, had carried out a
spate of bank robberies in Madhya Pradesh and used the money
for terror funding. It was planning to create a base in
Maharashtra, sources said.
According to police, Abrar was in contact with the
home-grown terror outfit Indian Mujahiddin (IM) through one of
its key operatives Abdul Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqueer, who is
wanted in several cases.
The gang, earlier headed by Abu Faizal, a former
member of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India
(SIMI), had also reportedly plotted to eliminate the judges of
Allahabad High Court who had pronounced the verdict in the
Babri Masjid case, police said.
PTI
