In a major catch, the sleuths of the Intelligence Bureau managed to arrest Irfan Ahmed, one time active member of the Tanzim Mujahiddin Islam Al-Hind outfit headed by the top leT militant Abdul Karim Tunda.
Irfan, who jumped parole and remained untraced now for last about 15-years was nabbed by the IB in his native town in Bahraich on Sundaymorning. He was reportedly lodged in Palpa prison in Nepal but after the walls of the jail collapsed during recent earthquake, he absconded from there and had slipped to his native town.
The sleuths of the IB who were on alert following an advisory that militants and conduits of Pakistani espionage agency ISI, might slipped into India through Nepal, got a tip-off about presence of Irfar so they swung into action and picked him upon Sunday morning. Interestingly the local police in Bahraich, who too were on high alert did not get any information about the price catch.
The sleuths of the IB handed Irfan into the custody of Special Crime Cell on the Delhi police, who reportedly claimed to have arrested Irfan from lucknow, on Monday. Irfan’s son Mohamed Issa, is too an active member of lashkar-e-Taiba (leT), and was arrested from New Delhi railway station in 2006 along with Pakistani national Abu Anas. A senior Delhi police official claimed that they will produce Irfan before a court for obtaining his police custody remand for further interrogation.
Irfan was described by the police as an absconder in the serial blasts aboard trains in Hyderabad, Indergarh, Gulbarga, Surat and lucknow on December 5 and 6, 1993. Two persons were killed in the blasts and 22 injured. He was arrested by the Special Cell in 1994 and handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. But he managed to come out on parole on the pretext of attending his brother’s marriage at Bahraich in 2000 and vanished. He reportedly fled to Nepal along with his family and set up a base.
Sources in the IB confirmed that after coming into contact with the leT founding member Zaki-ur-Rehman lakhwi, he helped in sneaking militants into India through the porous Nepal border. When his son Issa was arrested in New Delhi in 2006, the sleuths of the Delhi police tried to extract information about his Irfan’s whereabouts but he feigned ingorance. However, the Special Cell suspects that Irfan was operating from Nepal.