Two Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, Sajjad and Shabbir Ahmed Lone, previously incarcerated in Delhi, have resurfaced as ‘most wanted’ operatives

NEW DELHI: On a humid night of May 9, 2002, Delhi’s special cell turned a secret tip-off into a high-voltage operation at the edge of Humayun’s Tomb. Acting on intelligence regarding an imminent attack, the team scanned a sea of passengers deboarding Punjab Mail from Mumbai at Nizamuddin station and arrested three Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, Sajjad, Mehrajuddin and Firoze.Five kg RDX, one AK-47, two pistols, four detonators and plastic yellow explosives, and cash were seized. The arrested men took police to a parked Maruti car, DL 4C F 53**, near the tomb where two Pakistani LeT terrorists, later identified as Abu Bilal and Abu Zabiullah, were waiting. A team comprising then DCP Ashok Chand, ACP Rajbir Singh and inspector Mohan Chand Sharma neutralised both terrorists in the ensuing gunfire.Sajjad and the others, who were caught unharmed, were convicted and sent to Tihar Jail. Five years later, another operation unfolded while Sajjad aka Sheikh Sajjad Gul was serving out a 10-year sentence. In July 2007, special cell cops were again alerted about a terror operative having been sent to Delhi and apprehended Shabbir Ahmed Lone with grenades, arms and ammunition, besides $280 and Rs 1 lakh.

For the next decade, Sajjad and Lone remained incarcerated in Tihar and were eventually released in 2018-19 in close proximity to each other. Their release was the beginning of another journey and both terrorists have now turned “most wanted” once again, prompting the agencies to aggressively pursue them. Lone, it turns out, fled to Pakistan and was sent to Bangladesh by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to set up a terror cell there. Lone left the agencies alarmed recently when the henchmen he recruited carried out a “test task” in Delhi by pasting provocative posters before the AI summit. Operating now from the safety of Bangladesh, backed and funded by ISI, Lone is operating with the specific goal of radicalising Bangladeshi youth for terror plots in India.Sajjad, too, fled to Pakistan and is now at the helm of LeT proxy The Resistance Front (TRF), which has been behind several terror strikes, including the Pahalgam attack. Born in 1974, Sajjad received his early education in the valley. He earned his BSc from Srinagar, did a lab technician course in Kerala and went to Bengaluru where he pursued an MBA course in 1996. He eventually set up a diagnostic centre in the valley but also became involved in terrorist activities, starting off as an overground worker for LeT. Sajjad is operating from Rawalpindi and has been placed under protection of ISI after the Pahalgam attack, sources said.Both Sajjad and Lone have been termed by agencies as extremely dangerous, category-A terrorists, with high reward and an international manhunt against them.