Eleven people, including five Hizbul Mujaheedin militants, were on Monday arrested in connection with the attempt on the life of National Conference president Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq and the assassination of party leader Safdar Ali Beig, as police claimed to have smashed a module of militants owing allegiance to the outfit.
Efforts were on to nab two other members of the module, including a suspected Pakistani militant, Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, Javid Ahmad Makdoomi said in Srinagar.
Besides solving the cases of the killing of Beig and the IED attack on Omar and Farooq, eight other cases of murder -- of senior Congress leader Mohammad Yousuf Bhat, four policemen and three special police officers -- were also solved with the busting of the module in Anantnag district, Makdoomi said.
Anantnag district police, with the help of the army and the Central Reserve Police Force, made the arrests, Makdoomi said.
The captured persons were identified as Khursheed Ahmad Lone, alias Nika, and Ashiq Hussain Boda of Qazibagh, Ghulam Rasool Wagay, Ashaq Huasal Narchoor, Altaf Hussain Mungkhal, Imtiyaz Ahmad Din and Suhail Ahmad Deen (Mattan), Mukhtiar Ahmad Ganai and Manzoor Ahmad Bhat (Rarnal), Irfan Hamid (Lazibal) and Ghulam Rasool Najar (general bus stand, Anantnag).
The arrests were made over the past couple of days as the police intensified investigations into the killing of Beig, who was shot dead outside his Sarnal residence on October 21, and the IED explosion during his fourth day ceremony, in which the NC president and his father had a narrow escape, sources said.
The IGP said two Kalashnikov rifles, four magazines, a hand grenade and a 20 kg IED, containing RDX, were recovered from the militants.
The recovery of the IED helped avert a big tragedy, Makdoomi said, adding the investigations of the cases registered with the police were in progress and police would soon file challan against the accused before a court.
In a separate operation, he said, the police arrested one Murtaza Hussain, alias Raju, during the course of investigation into the the Kapran blast in Anantnag in July this year, in which Deputy Chief Minister Mangat Ram Sharma had a narrow escape.
Murtaza Hussain was involved in the blast and had been arrested on the basis of "irrefutable evidence" collected against him, Makdoomi said, adding he had been subjected to lie-detection test, in which the results had been ''positive.''
He said the two militants who evaded arrest in Anantnag had been identified. They were affiliated to the Hizbul Mujaheedin, he said, adding one of them was believed to be a Pakistani national Ali, alias Babar, while the other was identified as Kachguroo.
