Dancer Among Jaish Suspects Who Planned Attack On Air Base Near Delhi

New Delhi: Sajid Ahmad, the alleged leader of a suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed terror module busted in Delhi yesterday, was training as a dancer and had auditioned for reality TV shows as a choreographer.

Sajid and two other men arrested on Wednesday were planning Pathankot-style terror attacks in malls in the national capital region or NCR and at the Hindon airbase, about 30 km from the national capital, the Delhi Police said.

The terror plans, the police said, were at a very early stage and the three men were learning how to build improvised explosive devices or IEDs.

They were part of a WhatsApp group with about 40 members where radical ideas were shared and where they received instructions from Talha, the brother of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed's chief Masood Azhar, the police alleged.

The plot was exposed with the arrest of Sajid Ahmed, who had injured his hand when a bomb that he was building accidentally exploded. A police informer spotted the injured hand while Sajid was at the tailoring shop he works in and tipped off the cops.

The police, who had the men under watch, arrested Sajid Ahmad from Delhi, Shakir Ansari from Deoband in Uttar Pradesh and Samir Ahmed from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh.

The suspects planned to target malls in Ghaziabad, the police alleged, as they had assessed that security there was more lax than at malls in Delhi.

10 other men have been detained for questioning from different parts of the capital in multiple police raids. The three men arrested have been remanded in police custody for 10 days.

In January this years, six Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists infiltrated into India through the Punjab border and entered the high security Pathankot airbase, opening fire. In an operation that lasted nearly three days, seven military personnel were killed.

India has sought action against Masood Azhar, the mastermind of the Pathankot attack.