South India Lashkar chief arrested

New Delhi, Dec 2 : Self-styled south India chief of Pakistani militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba was Wednesday arrested in Meghalaya by the Border Security Force (BSF) near the border with Bangladesh, officials said.

T. Nazeer and another LeT operative were handed over to the BSF by the Bangladesh Rifles at the India-Bangladesh border.

"The BSF authorities have arrested the south India chief of LeT T. Nazeer near Meghalaya border. One more person has been arrested (identity of) whom I don't know," Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said here.

He said that the two suspected militants were "picked up from across the border".

"Questioning and investigations are on," Pillai said.

Nazeer is alleged to be involved in the 2005 terror attack on the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science in which a retired Indian Institute of Technology professor M.C. Puri was killed.

Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police Tomin J.Thachenkeri said in Kerala that police would try and bring Nazeer to the state as he has many criminal cases pending against him.

"The four cases against him are of attempt to murder case on former chief minister E.K. Nayanar, a murder case and two charges of burning buses. So naturally, he will have to be brought here," Thachenkeri told IANS.