Delhi’s Special Cell on Sunday arrested “most wanted” LeT operative Shabir Ahmed Lone, who allegedly used Bangladeshi nationals to evade detection and plan attacks on religious places.
A month-long operation by the Delhi Police’s Special Cell culminated on Sunday evening with the arrest of Shabir Ahmed Lone, a senior Lashkar-e-Taiba commander long classified as one of India’s most wanted terrorists.
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Lone, who reportedly set up a base of operations in Kolkata and directed reconnaissance of prominent Hindu temples in Delhi, is considered by intelligence officials to be a critical node in the cross-border terror pipeline leading from Pakistan through Bangladesh and into India.
Who is Shabir Ahmed Lone Alias Raja Kashmiri?
Shabir Ahmed Lone is not a new name for Indian security agencies. He was previously arrested in Delhi in 2007 and again in Jammu and Kashmir in 2016, making his latest capture his third known run-in with Indian law enforcement agencies.
Despite its history, it managed to rebuild its operational network, this time with a much more sophisticated structure designed to take advantage of India’s porous borders and mix with the civilian population.
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Shabir Ahmed Lone, operating under the alias Raja Kashmiri, was allegedly tasked by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence with setting up a Lashkar cell in Bangladesh from where he ran a cross-border terror network aimed specifically at radicalizing Indian and Bangladeshi youth.
Calcutta base and Delhi temple survey
At the heart of the alleged operation was a local base set up in Kolkata’s Hatiara area that served as a base for the network’s activities in India, according to a Times of India report citing the Delhi Police. From there, the module members spread out to conduct reconnaissance of trade and religious sites with great reach.
According to a ToI report, the Kalkaji Temple in Delhi and the Gauri Shankar Temple in Chandni Chowk, two of the capital’s most visited religious sites, were among the sites targeted.
“Test Task”: Anti-National Posters Before Al Summit
In one of the more operationally revealing details to emerge from the investigation, Lone allegedly ordered a group of newly recruited agents to put up anti-national posters across Delhi as a test of their skills ahead of the Al summit.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Pramod Kushwaha told the Times of India that the recruits “were the first batch of recruits who were sent to Delhi and were asked to put up anti-national posters as a ‘test task’ before the Al Summit”.
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The posters themselves were deeply inflammatory. They carried pro-Pakistan slogans, inflammatory messages about Kashmir, pictures of slain Hizbul Mujahideen fighter Burhan Wani, text in Urdu reading “We are Pakistanis, Pakistan is ours” and references to “Kashmir Solidarity Day”, an event observed in Pakistan.
The recruits allegedly filmed themselves while completing the task and sent the footage to Lone, who praised them for the encrypted chats and instructed them to proceed to the next stage.
How a cross-town trip netted the police
The recruits set up base in Calcutta, completed their assigned task in Delhi and then flew back. It was this movement between cities that proved their undoing. Police tracked the recruits’ route, used it to identify the agents, and arrested eight of them the following month, including seven Bangladeshi nationals.
The arrest shook Lone’s Pakistani handlers so much that Lone himself was then directed to re-enter India, intensify recruitment and find the means to plan an attack.
Arrest: Detained in Ghazipur after crossing into Nepal
A dedicated team led by Deputy Commissioner of Police Praveen Tripathi and Inspector Sunil Rajain, working on precise information about Lone’s movement, nabbed Lone in Ghazipur on Sunday evening. He crossed into Nepal and entered India through an open border, a route increasingly favored by agents trying to avoid checks at formal entry points.
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At the time of his arrest, the police seized his mobile phone and a Nepali SIM card along with a number of foreign currencies including 2,300 Bangladeshi taka, 5,000 Pakistani rupees and 1,400 Nepali rupees, besides Indian currency.
A Network Built on Deception: Bangladeshi Nationals as Cover
The interrogation began to reveal the calculated logic of Lone’s recruitment strategy. Instead of relying on Kashmiri or Pakistani agents who would attract immediate scrutiny from Indian security agencies, Lone reportedly sought to use Bangladeshi nationals who could adopt an Indian identity and blend seamlessly into the local population.
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The initial recruits are said to have come from Bangladeshi nationals working illegally in the Indian garment industry. In exchange for joining the network, they were offered money and the promise of a better life and then asked to bring other recruits on board. One of the key figures in this process was Malda-based Umar Farukh, who Lone allegedly first indoctrinated before appointing him to lead LeT operations in India.
Role of Saidul Islam and Bangladesh ISI setup
The police also identified Lone’s key accomplice as Saidul Islam, a Bangladeshi national who facilitated Lone’s illegal entry into Bangladesh, arranged his logistics and provided him shelters. Islam was also the primary connection that provided Lone and Umaru Faruq with details of a Tamil Nadu group connected to the network.
Lone is currently serving five days in police custody and is being questioned specifically about the ISI’s operational setup in Bangladesh. Police told the court that the prison interrogation was necessary to break up the rest of the network and that investigators still needed to trace the operators of the operation and identify the dealers responsible for distributing the foreign currency through the chain.
