Stating this at a press conference here, Punjab police chief P C Dogra said the terrorist nodule, backed by Pakistan's inter-service intelligence (ISI) agency and Britain-based International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) headed by Balwinder Singh Chaheru, had hired the services of Jaswinder Singh Jassi and Gurmukh Singh for assembling improvised explosive devices (IEDS) to be detonated simultaneously at three to four places throughout the state on the occasion of Diwali yesterday.

However, the DGP claimed, the plan of the terrorists' nodule, which was to act in tandem with another terrorists' gang following a green signal from their backers in Britain, was foiled in the nick of time with the arrest of Amarjit Singh Maula, Raj Kumar Raju, KulwantSingh and Avtar Singh Tari yesterday. All of them belong to different villages in Nurmahal area of Jalandhar district.

However, the recovery of the arsenal was made from Madhopur area on outskirts of Pathankot in an operation led by superintendent of police Shiv Kumar and assistant superintendent of police Gautam Cheema.

The cache comprised of 15 kg of RDX, four hand grenades, one mauser of .30 mm calibre along with 20 bullets, one .455 bore colt pistol with 20 catridges, ten electronic and 20 mechanical detonators, four boxes of time pencils, four blasting caps and two trigger switches, he added.

Dogra said interrogation of the accused, who were motivated by easy money and a chance to go abroad, revealed that two members of the nodule had volunteered to become ``human bombs'' to target VIPS. All those arrested are in early twenties, he added.

He said the breakthrough in the case was achieved on the Diwali eve when police spotted a white maruti speeding towards Madhopur. The van, managed to give aslip to the police, but Shiv Kumar planned and mounted an operation yesterday. They managed to nab four accused in their villages.

While Amarjit Singh, Kulwant Singh and Avtar Singh were arrested from Cheema Khurd, Mathada and Shadipur villages respectively, Raj Kumar of Kacha Pakka Vera was caught from Nurmahal bus stand. The van,too, has been seized, he added.

Dogra, while declining to reveal details of the terrorists' plan to revive militancy, their external linkages, communication system, fund transfers and other sensitive information because of operational reasons, however, claimed that police have inflicted second major blow to their efforts to reassemble splinters of various terrorists' outfits under the banner of ISYF (Chaheru), the ideological arm of khalistan commando force (KCF).

He said a multi-layered planning of the ISYF-KCF combine was foiled in Jalandhar on the eve of Lok Sabha elections in February this year with the arrest of several terrorists and recovery of more than one quintal ofexplosives besides small firearms.

The police had also busted an eight-member terrorist ring with the arrest of its two members from outside a Gurdwara at Jalandhar on February ten, a few days before then prime minister I K Gujral's visit on the last leg of his election campaign. While Baljinder Singh Neeta and his accomplice were arrested by the police on an intelligence tip-off, five members of the gang were arrested by Kapurthala police and Haryana police. They were Dhian Singh, Rajinder Pal Singh, Gurvinder Singh Puppy, Narinder Singh alias Shahbaz and Girdawar Singh. Of them, Shahbaz was arrested by Haryana police from Yamunanagar following a tip-off from the Punjab police. Amar Singh, the eighth member of the gang, operating in the guise of a taxi driver at Moga, was arrested later.

The DGP said interrogation of the accused revealed that consignments of arms were arranged by Britain-based group of terrorists in tandem with ISI operatives positioned at Sialkot in Pakistan. These consignments weremeant for use in Punjab and Delhi, he added.

Dogra said the ISI has opened a new channel to smuggle arms to India via Nepal for delivery to the terrorists active in Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Significantly, the arrest of Sahib Singh, a close confidant of Pakistan-based KCF chief Paramjit Singh Panjwar, by the Kapurthala police in April had indicated that terrorists were using Rajasthan border for infiltration of men and smuggling of arms and explosives.

The DGP at a press conference at Kapurthala on April 20 had claimed that Sahib Singh, had revealed a Pakistani politician's involvement in aiding subversives operating in India. He had also revealed that besides six consignments of RDX weighing 80 kg, an explosive code-named C-4 had also been smuggled through the Jammu border since october, last year.