The Delhi Police arrested wanted Hizbul Mujahideen member Javed Mattu in New Delhi on Thursday.
Mattu has been associated with multiple terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. He is wanted by security agencies for the past 13 years and carries a 10 lakh reward on his head. He was in the Delhi NCR region allegedly to collect arms and ammunition, which were to be used for a series of terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir, said Special Commissioner of Police Special Cell H.G.S. Dhaliwal.
“Mattu got caught in the radar of the special cell and Central agencies as they had doubled the security in view of the upcoming Republic Day,” he added.
Following an Intelligence alert, a team led by Additional Commissioner of Police Pramod Singh Kushwah arrested Mattu with a 9 mm star pistol with six live cartridges, one extra magazine, and one stolen car, from the Delhi Noida Direct (DND) flyway on Thursday. According to the police, he was in the area to collect ammunition in the presence of his Pakistan-based handler.
Mattu is the only surviving ‘A++’ category terrorist from Jammu and Kashmir, said Mr. Dhaliwal. Terrorists in the ‘A++’ category are reportedly first on the “hit list” of security forces.
According to the police, Mattu had been under the radar of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for some time. A resident of Sopore in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir, he has been associated with multiple blasts, five grenade attacks, several attacks on police stations and public servants. After getting injured in an exchange of fire with security forces, he went underground and fled to Nepal on the instructions of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), as the J&K police were chasing him, said the police.
Hizbul Mujahideen is one of 32 outfits proscribed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002. The outfit came into being in the Kashmir Valley in 1989 to counter the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). While the JKLF advocated for complete independence of J&K, the Hizbul wanted the merger of then State with Pakistan.
