Desk correspondent , Srinagar - It began with a poster on a metro station wall. On February 8, a CISF personnel reported the pasting of pro Pakistan and pro terror posters at Janpath Metro Station. The posters carried images glorifying Burhan Wani and slogans such as "India Stop Genocide & Free Kashmir," along with Urdu phrases supporting Pakistan. What that officer could not have known was that those posters were the visible tip of a sophisticated, cross-border terrorist network one directed from Bangladesh by a Kashmiri Lashkar-e-Taiba operative with a two-decade history of terror and a direct line to 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed. On Monday, March 30, the Delhi Police Special Cell announced the arrest of that operative: Shabir Ahmed Lone, a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist and handler of the recently busted LeT module in the Metro Poster case.

Delhi Police arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba handler Shabir Ahmed Lone (aka Raju/Zafar Saddique), a Ganderbal native radicalized with PoK arms training (Daura-e-Aam/Khas), previously jailed 2007-2018 for weapons cache and Hafiz Saeed/Lakhvi links, after he fled to Bangladesh to orchestrate recruitment of illegal Bangladeshi migrants using forged Aadhaar cards for a 6-state terror plot culminating in anti India "Free Kashmir" posters pasted in Delhi/Kolkata (PDF sent from Dhaka, base rented ₹8k/month outskirts) by 8 arrested operatives (7 Bangladeshis nabbed Feb 22-23 in Kolkata/Tiruppur post Feb 8 FIR; Kashmir raids March 26); accused Umar Faruk radicalized March 2025 admitted travel via Patna for recon/proof videos, shifting from propaganda to potential temple attacks, marking LeT's tactical shift exploiting vulnerable migrants and post-2025 Bangladesh as India focused hub.

The arrest of Shabir Ahmed Lone is the culmination of a 50 day operation that began with a CISF officer noticing something wrong on a metro station wall. From that single complaint, the Delhi Police Special Cell unravelled a multi state, cross border network with links to Pakistan's most wanted terror commanders and a plan moving from propaganda toward violence. Lone is in custody. The network he built must still be dismantled node by node. And the watch on India's borders, metros, and public spaces must not relax.