NEW DELHI: Mohammed Naved, the Pakistani militant who was captured earlier this month from Udhampur in Jammu & Kashmir, has told the NIA that the Lashkar-e-Taiba and ISI had threatened his family members after they urged him to quit the terror outfit’s training programme.
According to NIA officials, the youth said that his handlers had given him specific targets and that a huge sum was promised on his return to Faisalabad.
“Apart from the Jammu attack, Naved was given five or six other specific targets by the handlers. He was promised a huge amount of money. He also claimed that the handlers would regularly provide him with drugs, to which he had become addicted,” an official told Express.
Naved’s parents were forcing him to abandon the LeT training.
When his handlers came to know about it, they threatened his parents, saying: “Forget him now. He has been selected to do our job.”
Naved also said his family hadn’t received any money from the LeT or its charity arm, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. He also said that several recruits used to meet at an LeT safe house after their training and that ISI officials would secretly visit the training camps.
Amir Hamza, a member of the LeT’s central advisory committee, is said to be instrumental in recruiting youths from Faisalabad. A native of Lahore, Hamza was designated as a most-wanted terrorist by the US.
“Hamza and LeT founder Hafiz Saeed shared a stage during a mass rally in April in Faisalabad,” an intelligence official said.
Abdur Rahman Makki, a most-wanted LeT operative hailing from Bahawalpur in Pakistan, was also active in the outfit’s recruitment drive in Faisalabad and played a crucial role in raising the module involving Naved.
Makki is also responsible for arranging finances for LeT training camps and affiliated madrasas.
Meanwhile, Pakistan summoned the Indian Deputy High Commissioner to lodge a protest over “unprovoked ceasefire violations”, a day after India had also registered a similar protest over recent ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops along the LoC that killed six people, including a Sarpanch in Poonch.
Pak Rains Shells along LoC in J&K
Srinagar: Pakistani troops on Monday again violated the ceasefire in Balakote by firing mortars at Army positions and civilian areas along the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir. Defence spokesman based in Jammu Lieutenant Colonel Manish Mehta told Express that at around 7 pm on Monday, Pakistani troops started firing mortar shells. “Army men are effectively responding to the provocation. No causality or injuries were reported when reports last came in,” he said. Balakote sector has borne the brunt of the Pakistani shelling. Recently at least six civilians, including a woman and a minor boy, were killed in two days of cross-LoC shelling.