A terror strike,possibly in Delhi ahead of Diwali,plotted by the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) was foiled with the police seizing over 5 kilograms of explosives from a car outside Ambala Cantonment Railway station last night. A team of Delhi Police and their Haryana counterparts found the explosives in a blue Indica car parked outside the railway station,about 200 kilometres from Delhi,following probe into inputs provided by intelligence agencies ten days ago that a consignment of explosives was headed towards a north Indian metro. Though initial inputs were general in nature,sources said,the Delhi Police was provided specific inputs,including the make of the vehicle used for carrying the explosives and that the exchange would take place in Ambala last evening. The information was passed on to the Haryana Police and a joint team of Delhi and Haryana Police tracked down the car to the Ambala railway station. Sources said the vehicle had yesterday passed from the Lakhanpur toll barrier along the Jammu-Pathankot barrier. Sources said the car laden with explosives,which one would have needed to assemble to carry out a blast,was abandoned by its occupants who may have become suspicious when police carried out searches after waiting for someone to turn up. We had inputs that an LeT module active in Jammu and Kashmir was planning to strike in Delhi. Investigations were made and found that the explosives were meant for BKI and to be used in Delhi. We received a specific input yesterday about the movement, Arun Kampani,Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell),told reporters in Delhi. The recovery of the explosives came a month after a bomb blast outside High Court in Delhi. Ambala was the place where the explosives were meant to be exchanged. Bomb disposal squads and forensic experts from the Madhubani FSL rushed to the spot. Five kilogram of black explosives in three packets wrapped with brown adhesive tapes were recovered, Kampani said. Five detonators contained in a plastic box,two 'ABCD' timers hidden in the cavity of the window rolling machine of the front door,registration papers of the car and two toll receipts of Shambu Barrier and Ladowal were recovered. A box of sweets was found lying in the car,which showed it was purchased from Jammu's Bari Brahmna area besides two newspapers from Jammu and Kashmir. The car bore a fake Haryana registration number and the police suspect it was stolen. Asked whether the owner of the car had been traced,Kampani said they would soon find him but refused to give any further details. Efforts were on to trace the original owner of the car and police and other security personnel were also trying to take accounts from eyewitnesses who may have seen the car driver. Police said that the fake number on the car is registered in the name of a Panchkula-based business enterprise. An alert has been sounded in Haryana and neighbouring Punjab and security personnel have been asked to remain on alert and maintain strict vigil and track any suspicious movement of people or vehicles. When asked if the intended target of the terror plot could have been Delhi,Haryana's Director General of Police Ranjiv Dalal said,Senior officers from various investigating and security agencies are here. We are probing every angle. As the cantonment area is located in Ambala,police would also be probing if the target could have been a military installation in the region. The explosives have been sent for forensic test and a team of National Security Guard (NSG) from Delhi arrived at the spot,police said,adding the nature of explosives was being studied. After the recovery,security personnel thoroughly checked the car,which had the registration number HR-O3-R-0054. The tyres of the vehicle and some other parts were removed to check for more explosives,the sources said. In view of the approaching Diwali festival,vigil has been stepped up around key installations and crowded public places including railway stations in the state,police said. According to preliminary investigations,a CCTV footage showed the car had two occupants,police sources said. Police is now trying to verify the details and hunt down those who drove the car to Ambala cantt,which falls along National Highway 1.
