July 11 blast accused attended ISI training

Faisal Sheikh, prime accused in the Mumbai train blasts, admits he attended an ISI-run training camp in Pakistan.

Faisal Sheikh, a prime accused in the July 11 train bombings in Mumbai, has confessed to the police that he had gone to Pakistan in 2002 and attended a training camp near Muzaffarabad allegedly run by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

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Sheikh, in his confession to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), said he attended a programme organised by the banned SIMI in May 2001 at Pune, where he was told about atrocities on Muslims during the 2002 sectarian violence in Gujarat and the Mumbai riots in 1992-93.

This influenced him to go to Pakistan, he said in the confession that was submitted on Friday to a MCOCA court in Mumbai.

Sheikh travelled to Lahore by the Samjhauta Express and met an Indian Lashker-e-Taiba operative from Hyderabad, Abdul Razzaq, who influenced him to undergo training in arms at a camp near Muzaffarabad.

During his stay in Pakistan, he met Lashkar-e-Taiba's commander for India, Azam Cheema, he said in the confession recorded by DCP (Zone I) Brijesh Singh on November 5.