Flag of Lashkar-e-Taiba

Flag of Lashkar-e-Taiba

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Correspondent (Politics)

 

NEW DELHI – On Friday, August 16, Delhi police arrested Abdul Karim Tunda. He ranks at number 15 among India’s top 20 most wanted terrorists, and is responsible for more than 40 bombings in the country. He is one of the key members of terror outfit Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT).

“Abdul Karim Tunda is a well known LeT explosive expert/terrorist wanted for his role in 1993 Mumbai serial train blasts, Delhi bomb blasts of 1997-98 and serial bombings in the state of Uttar Pradesh and also at Panipat, Sonepat, Ludhiana, Hyderabad, etc.,” said Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) S N Shrivastava.

Tunda has also been accused of several serial cases of train blasts in Hyderabad, Gulbarga, Surat and Lucknow that were carried out on December 5 and 6, 1993, he said.

He was caught at around 3 pm at Banwasa-Mehendranagar, which is India’s shared border with Nepal. According to Shrivastava, he was carrying a Pakistani passport issued on January 23, 2013 in the name of Abdul Quddus. One police source claims that he was deported from a Gulf country while another said that he left Karachi around 10 days ago and reached Kathmandu via Dubai.

As stated by Shrivastava, Pakistan-trained Laskar-e-Toiba terrorists, belonging to Pakistan and Bangladesh, had carried out 24 explosions in Delhi, five in Haryana and three explosions in Uttar Pradesh on the instructions of Tunda.

“Tunda told us that he was in-charge of recruiting, motivating (recruits) and providing explosives for the operations of the LeT. He is a very good speaker, which is why he was in demand by several agencies in Pakistan,” said a senior police officer.

It is believed that he was guiding the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which later turned into Indian Mujahideen. He was also planning to ‘recruit’ Rohingyas from Myanmar to target Buddhists there.

“Tunda had planned to carry out bombings in and around Delhi in (September) 2010 at the time of the Commonwealth Games, but the plan was timely thwarted with the arrest of his accomplices who were supposed to carry out the attack,” said Shrivastava.

A top Delhi police official stated, “The explosives which were assembled outside Pakistan were to be sent somewhere in Delhi or Punjab.”

“The explosives reached Bangladesh but the two operatives (Shamim and Abu Baqar) were caught by the Bangladesh police in Dhaka,” another senior officer said.

The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) charged Tunda with organising LeT’s major terror attacks outside of Jammu and Kashmir — a series of 43 bombings in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Rohtak and Jalandhar in which over 20 persons were killed and over 400 injured.

In 2001, after Tunda’s attack on the Indian Parliament in Delhi, India demanded his extradition from Pakistan. He was 15th in a dossier of “most wanted terrorists” handed over to Pakistan after 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

“Nicknamed Tunda for his handicapped left arm, the terrorist is closely associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) in Pakistan. Tunda, in early 1980s, was initiated into terrorism by the ISI. In March 1985, while Abdul Karim was in Mumbai in connection with his (carpentry) trade, there were communal riots in Bhiwandi (in Maharashtra),” said joint commissioner of police (Special Cell) MM Oberoi.

According to police sources, Tunda became radicalized and joined jihadi forces after some of his relatives were killed in the communal riots of Maharashtra.

Karim’s left hand got severed in an accident while he was preparing a bomb, and this later earned him the feared nickname ‘Tunda’, said Oberoi.

“In Mumbai, Abdul Karim Tunda met and befriended one Dr Jalees Ansari. Both Abdul Karim and Ansari constituted their own Tanzeem namely ‘Tanzeem Islah-ul-Muslimeen (Islamic Armed Organisation for the Improvement of Muslims). Another top LeT militant, Azam Ghouri, had joined the Tanzeem floated by Ahl-e-Hadis to avenge the (December 1992) Babri Masjid demolition incident,” said Oberoi.

In 1993, Tunda and Ansari had carried out a series of explosions in Mumbai and Hyderabad, and seven separate bombings in trains. Jalees was arrested in January 1994. Thereafter, Tunda fled to Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, police said.

“In Dhaka, Tunda started imparting training to Jehadi elements in bomb making. He also stayed in Pakistan, where he is known to have imparted training on fabrication of IED (Improvised Explosive Device) and other explosives to Mujahids, who are sent to India from Pakistan for Jehad,” said Oberoi.

He returned from Dhaka to India to orchestrate the 1996-1998 blasts. The most devastating of these blasts occurred in a crowded private bus at Punjabi Bagh in Delhi in December 1997. The blast killed four commuters and 24 others sustained injuries.

“Tunda is known to and worked with Hafiz Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Wadhawa Singh, Ratandeep Singh, Karachi based IM (Indian Mujahideen) absconders, Abdul Aziz alias Bada Sajid and others. He is well known to Dawood Ibrahim,” said Oberoi.

“He claims that Dawood (India’s most wanted) first called him to meet in 2010. He says that the underworld don stays in a safe house in Karachi and is guarded by ISI. His movements are restricted and monitored by the intelligence agency,” a top Delhi police official said on Sunday, August 18.

When asked about Tunda’s claim that he was handled by Hamid Gul, the former chief of Pakistan’s ISI, Gul said, “Not at all. I left ISI in June 1989 and retired from military service in 1992. I had nothing to do with ISI in 1995. And ISI would never handle a man like Tunda. I don’t recall and I have a good memory. No possibility that I met him ever.”

Asked why Tunda would make such allegations, Gul said, “My name is very familiar in India, it sells very well in India. (Maybe) it’s the most familiar name that occurred to Tunda.”

The breakthrough for the police came in February, 1998, when Tunda’s two Bangladeshi ‘students’ –Mato-ur Rehman and Akbar alias Haroon – were arrested from Sadar Bazar railway station, New Delhi, police said.

Delhi Police later arrested 24 other members of the module, including Tunda’s confidants, Kamran and Shakeel.

“The hunt for Tunda had temporarily died down in 2000 when it was believed that Tunda had been killed in a blast in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Tunda’s continuing involvement came to notice in August 2005 when Abdul Razzak Masood, an alleged LeT chief coordinator in Dubai (UAE), arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi police, disclosed that Tunda was alive and he had met him in Lahore in December, 2003,” said deputy commissioner of police (special cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav.

His association with Rehan alias Zafar (LeT Commander), Azam Cheema alias Babajee (LeT Commander) is well known, he said.

A top Delhi police official said that Tunda, an expert bomb-maker, is a bigger catch for security agencies than Abu Jundal – a key Mumbai attack handler –because of his intensive networks across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

“He has met the leaders of almost all anti-India organizations and even their small operatives. Tunda was constantly in touch with ISI and has worked with them closely,” the official said.

 

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