According to Times of India, the UP police arrested the three armed persons in Maharajganj district on the Nepal-India border on Wednesday.
Additional director general of police Brij Lal said the arrests were made after the accused were intercepted while moving on a motorcycle in Nautanwa police circle of Maharajganj. When frisked, police recovered a sophisticated foreign made 9 mm pistol with five cartridges, 11 bullets of .22 bore and three kilograms of poppy.
The three accused have been identified as Ramesh Kewat, Riyaz Faqueer and Dildar Mohammad - all natives of Rupandehi district. Kewat is an activist of Akhil Tarai Mukti Morcha (ATMM) and wanted in nearly half a dozen cases of murder lodged with the Nepal police. Faqueer and Mohammad are members of Jantantrik Madhesi Mukti Tiger. The news portal said that teams from federal and state intelligence units reached Maharajganj to question the arrested accused in order to establish the real motive for their visit to India and their contacts on Indian soil.
Sources in the intelligence agencies said that initial quizzing revealed that the trio had been regularly visiting India, using Uttar Pradesh as a safe heaven while evading Nepalese police after committing crimes in Nepal. Interrogators have picked up clues indicating that the three had well established contacts in India, most of whom were based in eastern UP and regions bordering the National Capital Region.
Investigators were now grilling the accused to establish if they had committed a crime in India. "The type of weapons they had suggests that they are hardcore criminals and we suspect that they may behind some recent contract killings in UP and beyond, in India," a police officer in Maharajganj said.
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