3 Pak terrorists held, wanted to launch suicide attack

JAMMU: Three Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, including a serving soldier of Pakistani army, have been arrested and charged with planning to launch a suicide attack during Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls.

"We had received some strong inputs that terrorists guided from across the border were being asked to launch action in the state in the midst of assembly elections," DGP Kuldeep Khoda told a press conference.

Intelligence inputs showed that terrorists and some separatist groups were desperate to carry out disturbances since the polling process had received overwhelming support from the people, Khoda said. Keeping this in view, all key installations in the state were kept under close surveillance, he said.

During a checking operation by Special Operations Group (SOG) of police and CRPF in Gumat area of Jammu city, three suspects were rounded up from a room in a hotel as they failed to justify their presence there on the evening of December 21, the DGP said.

Khoda said the suspects had presented themselves before the police by giving fictitious names - Akhilesh Prasad, Inder Kumar and Gulshan Kumar, which they used for hotel booking. They also claimed they were all residents of Delhi.

During interrogation, one of the terrorists revealed his identity as Ghulam Fareed, Khoda said, adding he is a soldier belonging to 10 "Azad Kashmir" Regiment of Pakistan army.

He said Fareed had been a member of HuJI and underwent training for three months in communications and in handling different kinds of weapons before he joined Pakistan army in 2001.