A day after a car packed with explosives, detonators, timers and batteries was found in Ambala, Delhi police says terrorists had eyes on the Capital
Au00a0day after a car packed with explosives, detonators, timers and batteries was found in Ambala, Delhi police says terrorists had eyes on the Capital
A day after explosives were recovered from the Ambala railway station in Haryana, Delhi police officials, who reportedly developed the intelligence, said that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) were planning some untoward incident in the Capital.
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Officials said LeT and BKI are believed to have joined hands to disrupt Diwali celebrations in Delhi.
Security personnel inspect the Tata Indica, which was carrying
the explosives
Five detonators, two timer devices, five kg of explosives in two packets and two batteries were seized from the Tata Indica (bearing a fake Haryana registration number) lying parked outside the railway station. The vehicle has been brought to Delhi.
Oops!
Officials also said that Delhi police special cell's efforts would have gone in vain if they had believed the 'tactless' Haryana police. They said, even after specific details about the car and location, the Haryana police declared that nothing had been found in the car after they searched it initially.
"We had informed Haryana police about the car and asked them to send their teams there. We asked them to check if there was something in the car. When we reached the spot, Haryana cops were sure that there was nothing in the car.
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It was only after proper scrutiny that the explosive was found inside the front door of the car in between the layers beneath the glass window," a senior Delhi police official said.
Sources said a prolonged searched bore fruit and they recovered the explosives.
"We had put a few telephone numbers on interception and were aware of the movements of the explosives for quite sometime. We wanted to nab the culprits also, but unfortunately, because of the ineptitude of the cops there, we couldn't," sources said.
"The seizure of the car in Ambala came following a trail of inputs provided by central intelligence agencies that a car was headed to Delhi through Ambala with explosives and detonators," the cops said.
The vehicle carrying explosives that was found near
Ambala Cantt railway station, being searched
Deputy commissioner of police, special cell, Arun Kampani said: "We had inputs that an LeT module active in Jammu and Kashmir was planning to strike in Delhi. Investigations were carried out and it was found that the explosives were meant for BKI and to be used in Delhi. We received a specific input yesterday about the movement."
Delhi police informed their Haryana counterparts and all parking lots and the highway were checked before the car was traced to the parking lot at Ambala railway station.
Surveillance was kept up by police to check whether anybody would come to take the car but till midnight nobody turned up.
Trading point
"Ambala was the place where the explosives were meant to change hands. Bomb disposal squads and forensic experts from Madhubani FSL rushed to the spot. Five kilograms of black explosives contained in three packets wrapped with brown adhesive tapes were recovered," Kampani said.
"Senior officers from various investigating and security agencies are here. We are probing every angle," said Haryana's Director General of Police, Ranjiv Dala. As the cantonment area is also located in Ambala, police would also be probing if the target could have been a military installation in the region.
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The explosives have been sent for forensic test and a team of National Security Guard (NSG) from Delhi has been rushed to the spot, police said.
Dangerous ride
According to preliminary investigation, the captured CCTV footage showed that the car had two occupants, police sources said.
Police is now trying to verify the details and hunt down those who drove the car to Ambala cantonment, which falls along National Highway number 1, about 200 km from Delhi.
Delhi police had been trailing the vehicle and it was said to have passed from the Lakhanpur toll barrier along Jammu-Pathankot barrier on Wednesday, a police official said.
Initial investigations point towards the fact that the car laden with explosives was headed for Delhi and was abandoned by its occupants who may have been alerted about security agencies trailing the vehicle.
Efforts were on to trace the original owner of the car and police and other security personnel were also trying to take accounts from eyewitnesses who may have seen the car driver.
Police said the fake number put on the car is registered in the name of a Panchkula-based business enterprise.
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