New Delhi, 30 March (H.S.):

Delhi Police Special Cell arrested notorious Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Shabir Ahmad Lone late Sunday night in Ghazipur, foiling a major plot for a large-scale attack in the capital, officials said on Monday.

Lone, the handler of a module linked to the recent metro poster terror case, had been operating from Bangladesh with ISI backing, authorities revealed.

From Lone, police recovered about 2,300 Bangladeshi taka, 3,000-5,000 Pakistani rupees (roughly 3,000 INR), and a Nepali SIM card, all undergoing forensic scrutiny.

He had set up a safe house in Hatiara near Kolkata for his network, issuing encrypted instructions for reconnaissance in crowded Delhi spots like the Red Fort, targeting high-casualty sites.

Based in Bangladesh for years, Lone focused on radicalizing illegal Bangladeshi migrants, forging IDs like Aadhaar cards to infiltrate them as sleeper cells in Indian cities, a senior officer said.

The module, funded and logistically supported by Pakistan's ISI, used encrypted apps to evade detection while plotting high-profile strikes.

Training and Past Arrest

Lone, a Srinagar native trained in Muzaffarabad camps under Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi in basic (Dora-e-Aam) and advanced (Dora-e-Khas) courses, was previously nabbed in 2007 with an AK-47, grenades, and ammo.

Jailed in Tihar until 2018, he fled on bail to Bangladesh, reactivating his network exposed in February 2026 when eight suspects—mostly Bangladeshis with fake IDs—were arrested.

Under Deputy Commissioner Praveen Tripathi, the Special Cell continues raids with central agencies; interrogation of Lone may yield more leads on the ISI-backed cell, police added.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar