In one of the biggest-ever catches in the recent past, Delhi Police on Saturday arrested Abdul Karim Tunda, the dreaded commander of lashkar-e-Tayyeba (leT) wanted in over 40 bomb blasts across the country. Tunda had evaded the Indian security agencies and the State police forces since 1997-98 after his name had surfaced for masterminding the Delhi serial blasts in 1997-98. Delhi had felt tremors when one after another, 21 bomb blasts took place in city buses, killing scores of people. The Delhi Police Crime Branch had then arrested Tunda's men, but he proved elusive.
An intense manhunt was launched to nab him, but he had managed to slip to Pakistan via the Indo-Bangladesh border. A resident of Pilkhuwa in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district, Tunda was one of the 20 terrorists wanted by Indian security agencies. His name figured among the list of 20 hardcore terrorists wanted after the December 13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. According to the dossier prepared by the Indian agencies, Tunda had joined 'Tanzim Islah-ul-Muslimeen' — 'Islamic armed organization' and Ahl-e-Hadith. Jalees Ansari who was the fountainhead of these groups was responsible for over 43 explosions in Mumbai and Hyderabad and seven separate bomb blasts on trains in 1993. Investigators came to know of Tunda's existence after the train blasts in 1993, when Tanzim Islah-ul-Muslimeen, responsible for the attacks, was put under the lens by Intelligence agencies.
The latest operation to track down the movements of Tunda was lunched after lashkar chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, in a brazen defiance, exhorted his cadres to target India and especially New Delhi. "Special Cell sleuths intercepted Tunda’s calls and he was heard talking to members of the sleeper cell of Bangladesh and India. He was discussing a plan for a meeting before launching a terrorist attack in a border area. Electronic surveillance was mounted and his movements were identified. Tunda, who had led the investigators on a wild goose hunt for the past two decades, was finally arrested on Friday afternoon near the India-Nepal border," a police officer said.
Tunda had also tried to cause serial explosions in India in 2010, just before the Commonwealth Games, but his designs were foiled by the Indian security agencies and the Delhi Police. The attack on two Taiwanese in front of Jama Masjid and the subsequent investigations by Delhi Police had effectively checkmated the hideous plans of Tunda and lashkar. Tunda had lived in lashkar's head quarters in the Muridke area in lahore, Pakistan, where he mastered the art of assembling Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) He also imparted training on fabrication of IED and other explosives to Mujahids, who are sent to India from Pakistan for Jihad.
Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell), SN Srivastava said that the 70-year-old Tunda, one of India's top 20 most wanted terrorists and an aide of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim, was arrested near the India-Nepal border by the sleuths of special cell on Friday. "Tunda was arrested on Friday around 3 pm in Uttarkhand's Banbasa area close to the Nepal border and was produced before the Duty MM on Saturday who sent him to three days' police custody. He was carrying a Pakistani Passport number AC 4413161 issued on January 23 in the name of Abdul Quddus," he added.
Tunda, who was born in 1943 in central Delhi's Daryaganj area, is also wanted to stand trial in several cases of serial blasts in trains in Hyderabad, Gulbarga in Karnataka, and Surat in Gujarat and lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. "He allegedly worked with terror operatives like Hafiz Saeed, Zakiur Rehman lakhvi of lashkar, Wadhawa Singh of Babbar Khalsa Internatinal (BKI), Ratandeep Singh of Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) Karachi-based Indian Mujahideen absconders Abdul Aziz alias Bada Sajid and many others," Srivastava said, adding that in Delhi, he is wanted in 21 terror cases dating back to 1994, 1997 and 1998. Tunda is closely associated with leT and ISI in Pakistan.
Srivastava said that Tunda left's hand was severed in an accident while he was preparing a bomb in 1985 in Mumbai, after which he got the nickname of Tunda. It was in Mumbai where Tunda met one Dr Jalees Ansari and they formed their own Tanzeem namely 'Tanzeem Islah-ul-Muslimeen' - 'Islamic Armed Organization/ Organization for the Improvement of Muslims'. "After some months, another top leT militant, Azam Ghouri, also joined the Tanzeem, floated by Ahl-e-Hadith, to avenge the Babri Masjid demolition. Tunda and his associate Jalees Ansari had, in 1993, set off a series of explosions in Mumbai and Hyderabad and seven separate bomb blasts on trains. After Jalees' arrest in January 1994, Tunda fled to Dhaka, Bangladesh," Srivastava added.
An aide of don Dawood Ibrahim, Tunda is a leT explosive expert and terrorist allegedly involved in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Delhi bomb blasts of 1997-98 and serial bombings in Uttar Pradesh and also in Haryana and Punjab. "Tunda was a 'role model' of young militants and he trained them in preparing bombs with locally available materials like urea, nitric acid, potassium chloride, nitrobenzene along with the diesel and sugar and planting them at crowded places. He also trained terror operatives in making improvised explosive devices (IEDs)," the officer added.
It has been also revealed that the cadres trained by Hizbul Mujahideen experts in the Aligarh camp were taught how to make bombs by using chemicals that was easily available in the open market. New Delhi was singed by IED made of chemicals in 1997-1998 when Tunda led the attack on the Indian Capital. He was also instrumental in training the cadres of Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI)'s Bangladesh chapter. Tunda had also indoctrinated hundreds of youths from India who were later sent to terrorist camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and Pakistan. Considered an expert in indoctrinating youths, Tunda's expertise was exploited by Pakistan's ISI to spread the tentacles of various terrorist groups on Indian soil.