BombayÂ’s Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested terror suspect Samad Khan on Tuesday night as he left the Howrah-Kurla Express at Manmad railway station in the district of Nashik. Police also found on him a quantity of gelatin sticks and detonators. Samad appeared before a court, which remanded him in ATS police custody till July 10 and is the 15th person to be arrested in relation to the Aurangabad and Manmad explosive case.The ATS had been looking for him after they seized a huge quantity of explosives from a group of alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists in Aurangabad and Manmad. Samad is a resident of Beed district in Marathwada region and was working as a fabricator before joining the terrorist outfit. During initial interrogation by the ATS officials, the accused said that he had gone to Bangaldesh via Calcutta to generate funds to pay for legal expenses for the members of the terrorist group who were arrested by the ATS last month in Aurangabad. The accused further disclosed that in Bangladesh he was provided more training in handling sophisticated arms and preparing explosives.
On completion of the training he was provided enough cash to meet the legal expenses of the arrested alleged LeT terrorists and was also provided gelatin sticks and detonators to create blasts in some sensitive districts of Maharashtra. ATS chief K.P. Raghuvanshi said that the Maharashtra police had succeeded in destroying the hub of terrorists in the state and that the ATS is still investigating LeT links in other parts of the country.