NEW DELHI: A local court on Friday sent the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Javed Mattoo, an accused in 11 terror attack cases in Jammu and Kashmir, to five-day police custody. Mattoo, an A++ category terrorist and carrying a reward of more than Rs 11 lakh, was arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on Thursday.
He was nabbed from the Nizammudin area when he had arrived there to collect arms and ammunition from his associates at the behest of Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). According to official sources, the police are looking for the handler who was supposed to supply arms and ammunition to Mattoo in Delhi.
“It was a breakthrough as he was arrested just 20 days before the Republic Day. His interrogation is underway to find out how he planned to use that ammunition,” the sources said. According to sources, a Pakistan-based handler was coordinating the delivery of arms and ammunition, and Mattu would have, on his instructions, carried out some audacious terror strikes in J&K and other places.
Notably, Mattoo was the only surviving A++-category J&K-based terrorist. After getting injured in an exchange of fire with security forces some 10 years back, he went underground and fled to Nepal on the instructions of ISI, as J&K police were hotly chasing him.
Sources say that Mattoo is an expert in operating rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), under-barrel grenade launcher (UBGL) and AK-47. “He probably entered India via Nepal. More details can only be shared once his interrogation is over,” the officer privy to the probe said.
Mattoo was a member of the gang of seven dreaded terrorists of Hizbul Mujahideen operating in the area of North Kashmir, particularly Sopore, J&K. He is accused in several terror cases including killing a CID official and attacking residence of SP, Sopore in 2010, killing of two CRPF personnel in Pattan in 2010.