Police 'foil' Delhi airport attack
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Tight security at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. (File photo)
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SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir (CNN) -- The Jammu and Kashmir police say they have thwarted a suicide attack planned by Pakistani militants on New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Gopal Sharma, the state director general of police, told reporters Saturday that police arrested three men in connection with the foiled attack.
"The three militants belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were arrested by Poonch district police (and they were) from outside the state," Sharma said.
Lashkar e-Taiba is a Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant outfit designated as a terrorist group by India, Pakistan and the United States. It has been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. Some Western analysts say the group has had links with the al Qaeda terrorist organization.
Sharma identified the men as Assanullah alias Abu Bilal, Mohammad Bashir alias Abu Maria and Rashid alias Abu Kasha, all of them Pakistani nationals.
"Their preliminary interrogation revealed that they intended to carry out a criminal act of terror on Indira Gandhi International Airport around February 20," Sharma said.
Delhi's sole airport is the second-busiest in India -- after Mumbai's. Delhi has a population of 15 million.
Three AK-56 rifles, 12 hand grenades and 480 rounds of ammunition were recovered from the men, Sharma said.
The police chief said a local guide whose job was to facilitate the movement of the militants to Delhi and reconnoiter the area evaded arrest.
Sharma said the plan was hatched in Fazalabad village in Surankote of Poonch district, about 250 km southwest of Srinagar. The area falls under the Jammu region of Indian-administered Kashmir.
The police chief alleged that LeT commanders Abu Salama and Assadullah, under the supervision of the LeT's divisional commander, Abu Hanzullah, had readied the three men to carry out a suicide attack.
Abu Salama, Sharma said, was the mastermind of the January 2 suicide attack on Jammu railway station that killed four security personnel and wounded nine others.
New of the foiled attack came three days after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced that his country and India had agreed to start dialogue on the issue of Kashmir later this year.
Wednesday's announcement gave indications of the framework for further peace negotiations between the two bitter South Asian rivals that was reached during three days of talks this week.
For more than half a century since independence from Britain, the neighbors have been fighting over Kashmir, the mountainous territory with a Muslim majority claimed by both countries.
In recent years, the territory has been wracked by a bloody insurgency. There were fears the two countries were on the brink of full-scale war during a tense standoff and military buildup sparked by a militant attack on Parliament in New Delhi in December 2001.
But in late 2003, tensions began to ease, and a two-month-old cease-fire between the two armies along the Line of Control has already helped improve the atmosphere. The Line of Control divides the sections of Kashmir administered by India and Pakistan.
The last peace talks between the two countries were held in July 2001 in Agra, India. That summit floundered on the Kashmir issue and yielded no joint declaration, just a statement of intent for peace and prosperity in the region for the future.
-- Journalist Mukhtar Ahmad In Srinagar and CNN Correspondent Ram Ramgopal in New Delhi contributed to this report.
