04 November 2004	Thursday	20 Ramazan 1425

LAHORE, Nov 3: Officials of intelligence agencies in company with police foiled a sabotage act when they arrested early Wednesday morning two suspected terrorists with six rocket launchers and 10 hand grenades at Shadman.

An intelligence agency source told Dawn that two teams of his department were put on a surveillance on a tip-off that there could be a sabotage activity in the upscale neighbourhood.

He said a rickshaw when signalled to stop tried to accelerate and entered the GOR III. The intelligence agents chased the three-wheeler and opened fire after rounding up the vehicle.

Panic gripped the posh locality where most of the Punjab government senior officials reside. Police scampered there within minutes when a wireless message was radioed. Cantonment SP Waseem Khan and Defence police ASP Humayun Tarar led the law enforcers.

One of the suspects suffered a bullet wound and the other surrendered. Both were taken into custody by the intelligence officials, who recovered six rocket launchers and 10 hand grenades from the rickshaw.

Besides the rickshaw driver, who was set free in the evening, the two suspects were driven to a safehouse of the intelligence agency.

"We have nothing to do with the event, as it is the work of intelligence agencies," a senior police officer insisted, saying nothing more.

However, the intelligence source identified the injured as Muhammad Kashif, who was under treatment at the safehouse, and the other as Haji Noor, both residents of the NWFP.

"They both appeared to be just carriers. I assure you they were not the actual users of the deadly weapons they were carrying, the source, who was among the interrogators, said.

He quoted the suspects as saying that they were supposed to hand over the weapons to some one outside a mosque at Shadman. "We have been directed to wait outside the mosque."

The source said he was not sure about the affiliations of the suspects, but they both seemed to be the activists of the outlawed Jaish-i-Muhammad. "We, however, are working for its confirmation as the two suspects have been denying their affiliations with anybody since their arrest."

The source believed that there could be more arrests on the identification of the two.

Meanwhile, a heavy police contingent searched a four-star hotel on the Egerton Road for what, they claimed, the arrest of some activists of the banned Hizbut Tehrir.

The police cordoned off the hotel and did not let any one enter or leave the premises. The hotel administration and the inmates were in panic when the police paraded the corridors and searched some of the rooms.

"We have information that some Hizb men are hiding here," a police officer told reporters outside the hotel. However, the police did not find any one and left the spot after Iftar.