LeT man linked to 26/11?

Delhi Police’s Special Cell will interrogate suspected Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) militant Mohammad Umer Madani for his links to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, reports Vijaita Singh.

Delhi Police’s Special Cell will interrogate suspected Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) militant Mohammad Umer Madani for his links to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

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Police said that in June 2008, Madani went to Pakistan where he was asked by top bosses of the LeT to exploit India’s coastal areas to infiltrate terrorists.

He was in touch with his LeT bosses in Pakistan via the Internet. The police have tracked down the Yahoo email ID Madani used and are deciphering it for further leads. Madani was also asked to recruit young men from Jharkhand.

“We have seized a matrix containing the code language maintained by him. A diary containing coded statements was also recovered from him. Most of the codes were written in Urdu,” DCP (Special Cell), Alok Kumar said.

Madani used cyber cafes to send and receive messages from his bosses. They shared the password and used to store the messages in the draft box, the police added.

Madani, who can speak Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, English, Bengali and Nepalese, was initiated into the “jehadi activities” in 1996, after he was motivated by Markaz-Dawa-Wal-Irshad members.

In 2000, when he visited Pakistan again, he was asked to pump in terror-funding into India through Nepal, police said. Madani then allegedly came in contact with one Saifulla who came to Nepal and opened several bank accounts in local banks to facilitate flow of money from Pakistan to Nepal, the police said.

In 2002, the Special Cell arrested three men from Nepal — Mohammad Ibrahim, Inqmul Haq and Mohammad Abrar on charges of possessing explosive material. Madani had recruited all of them. Since then intelligence agencies had been on his lookout but could not establish his identity.

Police said Madani had come to Delhi to meet one of his an associate, Khalid, and was supposed to hand over the money he was carrying. He was asked to recruit youths from metros who were graduates and had computer expertise.

“He was asked to cultivate fishermen in Konkan and Malabar coastal regions.... (and) look for people who were good sailors and were interested in shipping, young men who have worked in fireworks factory to be trained in IED manufacturing,” said PN Aggarwal, joint commissioner (Special Cell).