LUCKNOW: A Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist arrested in March has revealed that 26/11 Mumbai terror accused Hafiz Saeed and Zakir-ur-Rehman Lakhvi are recruiting gullible boys under the aegis of their trust, Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), to wage war against India. Zabiullah alias Hamza, arrested during an anti-terror operation in Kupwara on March 20, said a seven tier-hierarchy looks after the two-year training of new recruits at seven locations, including a regional centre at Mudrike, forests in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and hilly terrains of Muzaffarabad.
Hamza’s five associates were killed in the operation that also left three soldiers and two policemen dead. TOI has accessed his interrogation report prepared by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). “It’s an open invitation. JuD leaders openly invite boys from 15-20 age group of Pakistan to join ‘jihad’ and are willing to sacrifice themselves. They write down their names, address and phone numbers,” his confession reads.
At the top of the seven-tier hierarchy is Saeed himself, known as Amir Sahab or Amire-Masgar. This is followed by instructors or recruiters at zonal, district, tehsil, town and sector levels. The instructors, called masools, are followed by “kakroons” at the lowest level. According to Hamza, the recruits are handpicked from madrassas by town masool and brought to the training centre of the LeT in Muridke in Lahore.
In his case, he was picked by his father, who was serving as a town masool in Multan. He has also disclosed details of six training locations, called “maskars”: Tabooq in Mansehra (two months), Daiken (five months), Ambore (two months), Aksa (two months), Khaiber (two months) apart from Muridke. At each, army and ISI personnel are available for help. It is after this module both Lakhvi and Saeed make appearance.
“In our case, during second training, in January 2017, Lakhvi visited the terrorist training camp at Daiken.” He has confessed it was at Ambor where Saeed appeared and “gave us hugs to motivate us against India” while the training focused on “route marches” on how to carry loads up to 25 kg on shoulders. The recruits were then sent to Karachi Food Centre in Muzaffarabad for a training in managing ration before the last module, “barfani training”, at Makhda.
Here they are trained how to move in snow-clad areas. Hamza has revealed that LeT’s student wing, Al Mohammadiya Students, has prepared a mobile handset in which they put a chip and use it for communication between LeT members. If security forces can intercept the communication, the connection automatically terminates.