London: One of India's most wanted, Tiger Hanif, charged with the 1993 Surat bombing, it seemed had vanished into thin air. However, the Metropolitan police swooped down on him 17 years later tracing him to a small town in North England near Manchester.
Forty-nine-year-old Mohammed Hanif Umerji Patel alias Tiger Hanif was traced to the grocery store in Bolton by Scotland Yard and later arrested from a house in Astley Street in Halliwell on February 16, a spokesman of the Metropolitan Police said on Wednesday.
Tiger Hanif has been remanded in custody and will appear at City of Westminister Magistrate Court on March 25 where the India government application for his extradition will come up. The Indian authorities will have to provide documentation to start extradition proceedings.
Hanif is wanted by the Indian authorities in connection with a terror bombings in Surat in Gujarat which killed an eight-year-old schoolgirl and left 12 others wounded.
(With PTI inputs)