LeT planned to attack Indian embassy in Dhaka: Bangladeshi police

The Indian High Commission in Bangladesh, along with the embassies of the US and the UK, was the target of Pakistan-based terror outfit LeT whose operatives were nabbed here recently, police said today.

Bangladesh police arrested three terror suspects, including two operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba, and their Harkatul Jihad (HuJI) accomplice from the south eastern port city of Chittagong this week, claiming to have foiled a plot to attack the US embassy.

"The information we gathered from interrogating the detained three (suspected) militants suggested that they also planned to attack the Indian high commission alongside the two other embassies," an official familiar with the interrogation told PTI preferring anonymity.

He said the local operatives of LeT and their Bangladeshi partner from HuJI received instructions from LeT's high command in Pakistan over telephone and they visited the Baridhara diplomatic enclave to chalk up the attack plans.

The detective branch's deputy commissioner Monirul Islam however said the three suspects were still being quizzed in custody under a court order, "and I should not make any definite comment at this moment on interrogation findings".

He said several other suspects, including foreigners, were being watched in connection with the plot.

The detective branch arrested the three suspects on Friday. Initial reports had suggested the militants had only the US embassy as their target.The two LeT operatives were identified as Shahidul Islam, 26, and Al Amin alias Saiful, while HuJI man was identified as Mufty Harun Izhar.

Izhar is the son of Mufty Azhar, the chief of the right-wing Islami Oikya Jote party, a partner of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

The detective branch sources had said one of the two LeT operatives was an Indian national and another was a Pakistani though they claimed to be Bangladeshi nationals.

Bangladesh in the past several months arrested three LeT operatives from different areas.

This week's development came nearly two weeks after authorities ordered intensified security of Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, the Indian envoy in Dhaka and the India High Commission in the capital after a reported security threat.