When militants spoke like housewives -- by Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui Back   Home  
"Aata aur tel kal pahunch jayega" (flour and oil will reach tomorrow). "Jhaadu aur daana mil gaya hai" (Broom and grains have been received). These are not excerpts of a conversation between a housewife and a grocery store owner, but the code-language which the militants use to communicate to each other.

These codes were used by the militants arrested by the Kanpur police and sleuths from the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

While 'aata' refers to RDX, 'tel' stands for Nitro-benzene and 'jhaadu' and 'daana' meant AK series rifles and cartridges respectively. Sources in the intelligence agencies, which intercepted the conversation of the Hizb men arrested in Delhi recently, said that the outfit used the same codes throughout India and beyond the border.

Other interesting code words included, torch (rocket launchers), kitaab (timer devices), dictionary (remote control) and chappals (pistols).

Sources said the Hizb has identified four districts in Uttar Pradesh to `cultivate fresh talents'. Its main focus is on Faizabad, where a single attempt would generate recruits. But, the militant outfit also has names from Lucknow, Kanpur and Aligarh on its list, sources added.

Extensive interrogation of the three accused arrested in Kanpur revealed that `young blood' from the four districts had been taken to camps across the border for training in arms and warfare. Gulam Jilani, arrested by the police and IB on Monday in Kanpur after RDX, detonators and other accessories and explosives were recovered from him, revealed that he had attended a 40-day camp in the jungles across the border barely a year ago.

Gulam disclosed how he was taken to Aligarh, from where he reached Jammu via Delhi. After a night halt in Srinagar, he was driven in an an Ambassador car a whole day, before the 22-hour long trek to the camp.

Though he failed to identify the location of the camp, the fact that he could hear gun shots in the vicinity suggested that the camp was situated in PoK, members of the interrogating team said.

The central and state inteligence agencies were also keeping a close watch on some polticial leaders whose names have figured in the interrogation of the three arrested by the police in Kanpur.

Sources said that these political figures have been instrumental in propogating the funadementalist ideologies of the militant orgainsations among the youths who attended a recent meeting allegedly held by SIMI activists in Kanpur.
This article was published in TimesOfInda.com.