Govt statement on ISI-Aurangabad links alarming

Govt statement on ISI-Aurangabad links alarming
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

AURANGABAD, MAY 10: It is a well known fact that due to its history and demographic profile, Aurangabad is a communally sensitive town, but Union Home Minister L K Advani's statement in Parliament on Tuesday that the town had become a beehive of terrorists sponsored by the ISI, has created turmoil amongst people here.

While the police have refused to confirm or deny the validity of the Home Minister's statement, speculation is rife on what could have led the Government to make a such a statement.

According to the police, no case of anti-national or terrorist nature has been registered against anyone in the town in the recent past. Nor has any one been arrested as a suspect in similar cases. Police, however, have not ruled out the possibility of some arrests in the new future.

Another section of the police say while they had detected the involvement of some people in clandestine activities time and again, nothing could be done against them because of their close proximity with top political leaders.

However, it has now been established conclusively that a former naxal turned terrorist, Azam Gauri, trained by the ISI in Pakistan, had attended a conference organised by the Students Islamic Movement of India here in November last year, police said.

Gauri is alleged to have been killed in a police encounter on April 6 in Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh.

In the border district of Nanded, it was a bomb explosion in a cinema theatre in February this year that led to the detection of ISI sympathisers in Dharmabad village.

The Superintendent of Nanded Police, V V Laxminarayan, who was in charge of the whole investigation and who coordinated with the Andhra Pradesh police, learnt that Gauri had been disguised as a butcher in Dharmabad. Gauri's links have been traced back to Lashkar-e-Toiba.

During a raid by the Nanded police on the butcher's house last month, the police came across currency notes worth over Rs 13 lakh along with some objectionable documents and a diary with the addresses of various outfits. Eight suspects have been arrested in this case so far.

Interestingly, police maintained a tight-lip silence throughout the investigation, but recently, Laxminarayan addressed a press conference, urging the media not to be too "curious" or "speculative". He, however, did add that he had stumbled on something "big".

Officials in Aurangabad maintain that while the terrorists may have received shelter in the town, most of their activities were related to incidents that took place in Nanded and the bordering districts of Andhra Pradesh.