Suspected leT terrorist Sayed Zabiuddin alias Abu Jundal, one of the key accused in the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, has gone on a hunger strike inside the Arthur Road jail here, demanding that he be shifted from the high-security ‘anda’ cell to the normal prison cell.
Confirming the development, Deputy Commissioner of Police Dhananjay Kulkarni said on Friday that Jundal was on a hunger strike since Thursday.
Given the serious crimes he has been involved in, Jundal has been lodged in an ‘anda’ cell for security reasons. ‘Anda’ cell is a small high security cell where hardcore criminals are lodged in isolation.
A native of Beed in Maharashtra, Jundal — who is also an accused in the Aurangabad arms haul case — was arrested in June 2012, immediately after he arrived in New Delhi, following his deportation from Saudi Arabia where he had been holed up for several months. He was later handed over to the Mumbai police.
According to a charge-sheet filed against him, Jundal had in May 2006 fled to Bangladesh where he was received by an ISI agent. He then used a boarding pass issued in a fictitious name to board a PIA flight to Pakistan.
The NIA’s case is that Jundal, who was one of the handlers in the attack, was allegedly present along with lakvi and other conspirators at Karachi-based lET ‘control room,’ from where the attack on Mumbai was supervised.
Jundal had taught Hindi to the Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, and nine other fellow Pakistanis who carried out the November 26-29, 2008 attack on Mumbai, in which 166 persons were killed and 260 others injured.
Jundal also faces the charges of having given directions to two of the Pakistani terrorists holed up at Nariman House and briefing the terrorists about the topography of south Mumbai where the attack took place.