New Delhi, December 19: Three Manipuri youths suspected to be members of Lashkar-e-Taiba were arrested today near the busy Red Fort area herethe first instance of the Pakistan-based terror group recruiting cadres from a north eastern state.

Salman Khurshid Kori (23), Abdur Rehman (24) and Mohammad Akbar Hussain (20), who were allegedly planning blasts in busy markets of the capital, were arrested by special cell sleuths of the Delhi Police as soon as they alighted from a bus coming from Jammu opposite the Red Fort area around 7:30 am.

"All the youths hail from Manipur," Joint Commissioner (special cell) Karnal Singh said, adding that this was the first instance of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) infiltrating in organisations of the North-Eastern State.

"This is for the first time that nexus of LeT with groups in the north-east has come to light, thereby implying that LeT is trying to create a base for itself in the North-East," Singh said.

He said two kg RDX, two detonators and one hand grenade was seized from their possession.

The trio has links with two LeT terrorists, hailing from Bangladesh, who were arrested in the capital on October 16, days ahead of Diwali.

Singh said the two Bangladeshi terrorists had come to deliver RDX to the trio from Manipur in October but were intercepted by the special cell sleuths.

"We had been on their trail since October," he said.

Singh said the interrogation of militants revealed that they were planning to carry out blasts in the busy market areas of the capital.

The 23-year-old Khurshid had undergone training in Pak-occupied-Kashmir at the instance of Salim Salar alias Doctor, who was killed in an encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police in the aftermath of terror attacks in Varanasi.

In October 2004, he along with 10 militants crossed the Line of Control in Kashmir and trained with terrorists of the region, Singh said.

Khurshid was asked by LeT commanders Abu Faris and Abu Furkan to recruit Manipuri youth for LeT.

He had also visited Delhi, Aligarh, Bangalore, Mumbai and Manipur in this connection and had sent three persons, including Rehman and Hussain, for terror training in Kashmir.

Rehman has studied upto class eight in an English School in Imphal and was inducted into terror activities by Khurshid in November 2004.Rehman was taken to Bangladesh for training in carrying out terror attacks by the People's United Liberation Front (PULF) in May this year where he met one Azim Bhai of LeT, Singh claimed.

The Joint Commissioner claimed that LeT was trying to infiltrate PULF and the arrests have dealt a blow to LeT plans to set up base in the North-East.

Delhi police have arrested 33 terrorists so far this year and recovered 43 kg of RDX from them, Singh said.

Of them, 17 were LeT members and three belonged to Jaish-eMohammad.

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