Detained Kashmiri youth released

NEW DELHI: UP Police has released four Kashmiri youth picked up for questioning soon after the Sunday���s Noida encounter as nothing suspicious was found against them. They are still trying to verify the details found in the passport seized from Ali Mohammed, one of the two suspected terrorists killed.

���The four persons were released after their identities were ascertained with the help of the authorities in J&K . They hail from Pulwama and Kupwara districts of the Valley and the police found nothing to relate them to the two dead terrorists, Ali Mohammed and Abu Ismail,��� a senior UP police official told the ET.

Two suspected Pakistani terrorists were gunned down by an Uttar Pradesh ATS team early on Sunday while they were trying to enter Delhi, apparently for a terror strike coinciding with the Republic Day. The UP police had been on the lookout for the two men, both in their early 20s, for over month. On Saturday night, they were spotted in Ghaziabad.

As a team of ATS and Ghaziabad police trailed the terrorists travelling in a Maruti car, the terrorists abandoned the vehicle at Sector 97 in Noida and ran into the fields while opening fire on the police personnel with their AK-47 s. In the encounter that ensued, the two terrorists were injured. One of them identified himself as Farooq, although a passport recovered from him gave away his identity as Ali Mohammed, son of Fateh Mohammed and hailing from Dera Rahimyaar Khan in Pakistan . Both the terrorists succumbed to their injuries before the police reached them to the hospital.

The police later recovered two AK-47 s, four spare magazines, around 120 bullets, five Chinese grenades, nine RDX sticks, a few detonators and Rs 18,000 in cash from the car used by the terrorists. The UP police and IB are now confirming the identification details in the passport found with Ali Mohammed.