Top terrorist Tunda held on Nepal border

Abdul Karim Tunda, a close aide of the underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim, and one of India's most-wanted terrorists who was a bomb-maker for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has been arrested after being on the run in several countries for 19 years.     

Also known to be close to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks mastermind, Hafiz Saeed, Tunda, 70, who was holding a Pakistani passport by the name Abdul Quddus, was arrested on Friday at around 3 pm from the Banwasa-Mehendarnagar area on the Indo-Nepal border and brought to Delhi.

Tunda is one of the 20 terrorists India had asked Pakistan to hand over after 26/11 and is suspected to be involved in 40 bombings in the country. He is the first in the list to be arrested. India’s list of wanted terrorists and criminals given to Pakistan includes LeT chief Saeed, Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar and Dawood.

Police said Tunda was wanted in 21 cases in Delhi, committed in 1994 and in 1996-1998.     

Addressing a press conference here, Special Commissioner of Delhi Police (special cell) S N Shrivastava said Tunda was carrying a Pakistani Passport No AC 4413161 issued on 23 January, 2013 in the name of Abdul Quddus.     

Tunda had trained young indoctrinated youths in preparing bombs with locally available materials like urea, nitric acid, potassium chloride, nitrobenzene and sugar, and planting those at crowded places to cause maximum casualties, he said.     

Before becoming a militant, Tunda had worked as a carpenter, scrap dealer and cloth merchant. His younger brother Abdul Malik (a carpenter) is reportedly the only immediate family member alive in India.     

There were conflicting reports over the circumstances in which Tunda was arrested, with one police source claiming he was deported from a Gulf country.

Another source said Tunda left Karachi around ten days ago and reached Kathmandu via Dubai. Intelligence agencies were tracking him from Dubai and gave a tip-off to the special cell.