KOLKATA, March 18: Authorities arrested a suspected member of a Pakistan-based Kashmiri liberation group on Thursday while he was trying to buy a train ticket to travel to northern parts of India, police said.

Shabaz Ismail, 24, illegally entered India’s West Bengal state from neighbouring Bangladesh after travelling from Karachi in Pakistan, police official Rajeev Kumar said, citing the government personnel who questioned the man. He was arrested on Thursday in Kolkata, Kumar said.

The suspect was believed to be a former Pakistan border guard who joined the Al Badr group in 2008, Kumar said.

There was no independent confirmation of the claim.

Al Badr is fighting Indian forces in occupied Kashmir and claimed responsibility for two grenade attacks on them earlier this month in Srinagar.

Police recovered a mobile phone and SIM card bought in Bangladesh and some documents from the suspect, Kumar said.

Nearly a dozen groups have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan since 1989. More than 68,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict.—AP
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