Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Minister for Agriculture Abdul Aziz Zargar on September 11 resigned amid allegations that terrorists who carried out Akshardham temple attack in Ahmedabad had planned the operation at his native house.

Zargar submitted his resignation to Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed after his name repeatedly figured in the investigations in the Akshardham case, official sources said.

Maintaining his innocence, Zargar, a senior leader of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said in his resignation letter that he was stepping down in view of the raging controversy over alleged use of his native house in village Manzgam by Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants involved in the attack on the temple.

Earlier, Zargar had issued a statement strongly denying any links with militants and said the allegations were motivated and part of a sustained campaign against him.

"I am not aware of my native house being used by militants as I had migrated from there immediately after the eruption of militancy in Kashmir," Zargar said.

"Who visited my native house and at what point of time, I am not aware of it," he added.

In a report submitted to the government, security agencies had said that confessions of an alleged accomplice in the Akshardham attack and diary of a Pakistani militant had claimed the entire planning for the attack, in which 32 people were killed, was done at Zargar's native residence.

The accomplice, Chand Khan, claimed during interrogation that the two suicide attackers of Lashker-e- Toiba along with him had started their journey for Gujarat from Zargar's residence, the report said.

However, state police denied any link between Zargar and LeT militants but said militants used to frequent the village of the minister for food and shelter.

PTI