Udhampur attack: Hunt on for trader who helped Naved, aide

After the recent arrest of four accomplices of Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Naveed Yakub, who was involved in the attack on a Border Security Force convoy in Udhampur last week, police are looking for a businessman who is said to have paid him money.

Naved told interrogators that he had given them all information available with him and that there was nothing to tell.

“Mere kol jitna bhi tha, mein dus ditta. Haur mere kol kuch na hai, mainu tang na karo (I have shared whatever I knew. I don’t know anything beyond this. Please stop asking me again and again),” Naved reportedly told his interrogators Monday when he was being questioned again about the route he took for infiltration.

The language spoken by him is generally used in Faisalabad and Sialkot areas of Pakistan, his interrogators said. Naved was taken to Jammu and produced before a special NIA court for further remand.

Based on information provided by him, police and central security agencies have launched a manhunt for a businessman who is alleged to have paid him and Mohammed Noman alias Momin Rs 500,000(US$4,912 ) for sharing it with other Lashkar-e-Taiba cadre.

The businessman, who reportedly owns a shop in uptown Srinagar, had provided the money to Naved and his handlers to run Laskar-e-Toiba’s  (LeT) network in Kashmir and carry out terror strikes.

So far, 11 people have been rounded up by the police based on information provided by Naved. All of them are being questioned.

Naved’s interrogators said he was changing statements frequently and had given four different accounts of the route he and his accomplices took to infiltrate India.

After undergoing two modules of training with LeT, Naved is perceived to be a hardened militant who is trying to confuse his interrogators, a tactic apparently aimed at buying time for his other accomplices in the terror network to slip away.

He had undergone two training modules–‘Daur-e-Aam’ and ‘Daura-e-Khas’. While the first module teaches LeT cadre physical fitness, mountaineering and use of small arms, in the second they are trained in using assault rifles and manufacture of small explosives.

A case under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Arms Act and various sections of Indian Penal Code has been registered against Naved, who claims to be a resident of Faisalabad in Pakistan.

His accomplice, identified by him as Noman alias Momin, was killed in retaliatory firing by BSF during the terror attack. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) team will also examine the BSF personnel, who were in the convoy that had come under attack, and local villagers who captured the armed terrorist, sources said.

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