Delhi Police Commissioner K.K.Paul says Tariq Ahmad Dars' interrogation
has revealed that he financed and coordinated last month's bomb blasts,
which devastated India's capital just two days before the main Hindu
festival of Diwali.
Thirty-three-year-old Mr. Dar was arrested Thursday in Kashmir's summer
capital, Srinagar, and is in custody of the Delhi police.
Mr. Paul says the hunt is on for four other accomplices, who include
key operatives of the terrorist group, Laskhar-e-Taiba.
The police commissioner says all the evidence and
clues authorities have gathered clearly reveal the attacks were the
handiwork
of the
Lashkar-e-Taiba. It is one of the most prominent militant groups waging a
separatist insurgency in Indian Kashmir.
Soon after the blasts, an obscure group, called the Islami Inquilabi
Mahaz, or Islamic Revolutionary Group, claimed responsibility for the
bombs, but Indian authorities had doubted the authenticity of the claim.
Mr. Dar will remain in police custody for several days before being
formally charged. Police say he works with a pharmaceutical company in
Srinagar, and was not in New Delhi during the attack, but came to the city
three weeks before the blasts to scout for locations.
The attacks prompted the police to launch one of the biggest manhunts
in recent times. Last week, Indian troops arrested another suspected
militant from Jammu and Kashmir state in connection with the blasts, but
police later said they found no evidence against him.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba has been accused of other terror attacks in India,
including an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001. The group
was banned in 2002 by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, amid pressure
on terror groups following the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United
States. |