Saturday, January 23, 2010

No proof found to link Pakistani teen Nauman Arshad to terror

AMRITSAR: The Border Security Force (BSF) of India, which had branded teenaged Pakistani national Nauman Arshad as a potential suicide bomber, has not been able to support its claims despite all top investigating and intelligence agencies jointly interrogating him over the past six days, TOI reported on Saturday.

His police remand over on Wednesday, Arshad, 18, has been shifted to the jail now. He was found in India by the BSF without any valid travel documents on January 14 and booked under various sections of the Indian Passport Act and the Foreigners Act at Gharinda police station. However, no incriminating evidence has been found since to link him to a terror group. The BSF had claimed that Arshad was on a recce mission of the border to monitor movements and find holes in barbed wire fencing for facilitating infiltration of seven suicide bombers, including three females, to carry out a bombing spree this side of the border.

Highly-placed sources on Friday informed TOI that sustained interrogation has revealed that Arshad was under immense pressure from his mother, Tahira Ramzan, a teacher in Cantt Girls Middle School, Manawan, 8km from the Indo-Pak border, to perform well in studies since he had scored badly in December examinations of Class IX. Unable to excel in studies like his brother and sister, the youth had left home to meet his uncle — a Pakistan Ranger posted at Wagah (Pakistan) border. It so happened, that his uncle was not at the border the day Arshad landed there and then crossed the international border inadvertently, they added.

No comments: