On the eve of Republic Day, the UP Police had gunned down two terrorists — Ali Ahmed and Abdul Ismail — while they were trying to sneak into Delhi.

From the encounter spot, the police recovered an I-card of Parbhani (Maharashtra)-based College of Agriculture and Technology which carried Ali’s photograph and identified him as Rakash (read Rakesh), son of Ashok Mehta, and a student of B Tech (Agriculture). The Uttar Pradesh ATS sought verification of the I-card from their Mumbai counterparts and the latter confirmed that it was fake and that Ali had never studied at the college.

The report by Mumbai ATS at the same time mentioned that a Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative Faiyaz, who is wanted in a 2006 case of arms haul in Aurangabad, had been enrolled as a student in the same college in 2000.

“We are holding a joint probe in co-ordination with our Mumbai counterparts if Ali Ahmed had any link with Faiyaz,” said Senior Superintendent of UP ATS Rajiv Sabbarwal. Faiyaz, a native of Parbhani district, is wanted for the Aurangabad seziure along with Bangladesh-based LeT militant Zabihuddin Ansari alias Zabby, who had sent the arms consignment for terror operations.

On May 9, 2006, acting on a tip-off from Delhi Police Special Cell, the Mumbai ATS had seized 16 AK 47 rifles, 4,000 live cartridges, 62 magazines, 43 kgs of RDX and 50 hand grenades from the possession of LeT operatives Mohammad Ameer Shakeel Ahmed Sheikh, Sayyed Zuber and Mohammad Muzaffar Mohammad Tanvir who were travelling in an SUV on Manmad-Aurangabad Highway. This led to a string of arrest including a SIMI member Mustafa Sayyad of Hyderabad and 12 others.