The elite OCTOPUS (Organisation for Counter Terrorists Operations) commandos of the Andhra police, in their first anti-terror operation, smoked out three terror suspects of the Islamic Defence Force holed up for more than 10 hours at a house in Puttur in Chittoor district.
The elite OCTOPUS (Organisation for Counter Terrorists Operations) commandos of the Andhra police, in their first anti-terror operation, smoked out three terror suspects of the Islamic Defence Force holed up for more than 10 hours at a house in Puttur in Chittoor district. The police recovered a pistol, pipe bombs, five improvised explosive devices and a remote controlled device from two houses after the operation. It was a joint operation of the Tamil Nadu and AP police and the suspects were taken to Chennai. According to director-general of police B. Prasada Rao, the suspects were identified as “most wanted” terrorists Bilal Malik and Panna Ismail, who were allegedly involved in the blasts at the BJP office in Bengaluru, an attempt to attack BJP leader L.K. Advani with pipe bombs and the murders of BJP and RSS leaders. Mr Lakshamanan of the Tamil Nadu special investigation division was injured when Bilal Malik stabbed him in the lung at the start of the operation at 4.30 am on Saturday. He was shifted to a Tamil Nadu hospital and is said to be stable. One of the terror suspects, Panna Ismail, was shot in the stomach by the police and was sent to Chennai Government Hospital.
