Alleged conspirator of 2002 Akshardham attack arrested

Alleged prime conspirator of 2002 attack on Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, has been arrested at city airport on Friday latenight.

He arrived in city from Riyadh after which the arrest followed.

“Ajmeri is one of the prime conspirators behind the Akshardham temple terror attack. He was arrested from the airport after he landed here late last night. We had inputs that he is travelling to Ahmedabad from Riyadh to meet his brother,” the DCP of Ahmadabad Crime Branch, Deepan Bhadran, said. Allegedly Abdul Rashid Ajmeri had planned the attack and helped Lashkar-e-Taiba in carrying it out.

Ajmeri, an Ahmedabad resident, “had absconded to Riyadh before the terror act was committed,” Bhadran said, adding that more names may come out during his interrogation.

Two militants, allegedly with links to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, had attacked the temple in Gandhinagar on September 24, 2002, killing 32 and injuring over 80 people.

The attackers were killed by the National Security Guard (NSG) commandos.In May 2014, the Supreme Court acquitted all six convicts arrested earlier, including three facing death sentence, in the case.