Arrested LeT terrorist Tunda had planned attack in Delhi before CWG

According to reports,the 70-year-old Tunda,an expert bomb maker of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba,was arrested by Delhi police on Friday at around 3 PM from the Banwasa-Mehendarnagar area on the Indo-Nepal border and brought to Delhi. Delhi court today sent Tunda to three-day police custody.

Delhi faces LeT threat,security stepped up after inputs from IB

Addressing a press conference,Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) S N Shrivastava said that Pakistan trained Laskar-e-Taiba terrorists,belonging to Pakistan and Bangladesh,had carried out 24 explosions in Delhi,5 in Haryana and 3 explosions in Uttar Pradesh on the instructions of Tunda.

“Tunda had planned to carry out bombings in and around Delhi in 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.

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

He was carrying a Pakistani Passport No AC 4413161 issued on 23 January,2013 in the name of Abdul Quddus,Shrivastava said.

Abdul Karim Tunda: From a carpenter to top Lashkar terrorist

Tunda is one of the 20 terrorists India had asked the Pakistan government to hand over after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and is suspected to be involved in 40 bombings in the country. He is the first in the list to be arrested.

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

A resident of Pikhuwa in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad district,Tunda is known to have masterminded a series of 43 bombings in Mumbai,Hyderabad,Delhi,Rohtak and Jalandhar.

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.

Related: After Tunda left home,his wives and children also went missing

Describing Tunda as a major catch,the security agencies say he would be able to throw some light on Lashkar-e-Taiba’s operations in India.

Tunda was one of the 20 terrorists whose extradition India had demanded from Pakistan after the 2001 attack on Parliament House.

Related: Lashkar ‘bomb expert’ Abdul Karim Tunda held

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

(With PTI inputs)