‘Hindu terrorist’ from UP held, brother says shoot him if he has links with LeT | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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‘Hindu terrorist’ from UP held, brother says shoot him if he has links with LeT

Hindustan Times, Muzaffarnagar | ByVashistha Bhardwaj
Jul 11, 2017 08:16 AM IST

Sandeep Sharma, a resident of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, was allegedly a part of a Lashkar-e-Taiba module that was involved in planning attacks on army and Police and looting ATMs and banks in Kashmir.

Uttar Pradesh police detained on Monday the 60-year-old mother and sister-in-law of alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Sandeep Sharma, who was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir.

Residents outside the rented house where Sandeep Sharma’s mother and sister-in-law live.(HT Photo)
Residents outside the rented house where Sandeep Sharma’s mother and sister-in-law live.(HT Photo)

A police team went to the suspected terrorist’s home in New Ankit Vihar Colony of Muzaffarnagar and took his mother, Premwati, and sister-in-law Rekha into custody.

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It was not clear why they were detained. Investigators are apparently questioning them.

Elder brother Praveen Sharma, a taxi driver in Haridwar, said after the suspect’s arrest that he should be shot dead if he has links with the Pakistan-based group behind terrorist attacks in Kashmir and the 2008 Mumbai carnage in which 164 people were killed.

“We were not aware that he had links with LeT. We are ashamed of his act,” he said.

“He has done a shameful act. Whatever punishment the government gives to him, our family will not protest. Even if the government decides to shoot him we will support it,” he told reporters.

Praveen apparently was informed about six months ago by a police officer from Kashmir’s Anantnag about his brother’s arrest “in some case”.

But he didn’t go there as the brother’s haven’t spoken to each other for three years, a source said.

Sandeep alias Adil joined a private company and drove an auto-rickshaw for some time after finishing high school in his village, Mustafabad. Five years ago, he and a cousin went to New Delhi to search for jobs and a contractor in the city sent him to Kashmir.

He allegedly planned at least five cases of ATM loot worth lakhs of rupees earlier this year. He was also allegedly a part of LeT teams that attacked an army convoy in Qazigund, snatched weapons in Anantnag and attacked a police party at Achabal in which six cops including a station house officer (SHO), were killed, J&K police chief Muneer Khan said. The Valley’s police have reached out to their counterparts in Uttar Pradesh for further investigation.

“Of course, he (Sharma) is a militant. Criminal elements are now joining the militants for their own goals…. terrorists of Lashkar used him very frequently in carrying out nefarious activities,” J&K police chief Muneer Khan told a packed audience in Srinagar on Monday morning.

Sources said he hasn’t contacted his family since 2014.

According to senior superintendent of police Anant Dev Tiwari, the suspected terrorist has no criminal history in Muzaffarnagar.

Police teams initially went to Mustafabad on the outskirts of Muzaffarnagar to find the family.

Villagers there informed them that the family of Ramesh Sharma, the father, left the place more than a decade ago. The property was sold off seven years ago.

After the patriarch’s death, the family rented a house in New Ankit Vihar Colony.

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