New Delhi:
The Delhi Police on Friday arrested Abdul Karim Tunda alias Abdul Quddoos, one of India's top 20 most wanted terrorists, and mastermind of over 40 bombings in the country.
Tunda, believed to be around 70 years old, is known as an "expert bomb maker" of the terror outfit Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT). He got the moniker Tunda (Hindi for without a hand) after his left hand got severed in an accident while preparing a bomb in 1985 in Mumbai. During interrogation by the Delhi Police, Tunda revealed he developed an interest in explosives right from childhood.
In the dossier handed over to Pakistan after the 26/11 attacks, Tunda ranks number 15 among the men wanted by India. The dossier claims he is close to Jamat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks. He is, according to sources, also association with Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's gang.
Even though he is more notorious for his bomb-making skills, Delhi Police sources say Tunda was now actively involved in recruiting and training of Jihadis, providing explosives and printing fake currency. During his interrogation, he admitted to running Madrasas across Pakistan called 'Mehdoot Talim Islami Darool Fanoon' - which receive donations from individuals and various terror groups and in turn provide young jihadis. He is also understood to be a motivational speaker and through his excellent network of operatives in Bangladesh was pushing material and men into India.
But before he took to terror, Tunda began his career as a carpenter. He soon switched jobs and started assisting his father in melting metals like copper, zinc and aluminium to earn a livelihood. After his father's death, Tunda, now the lone bread earner of his family, took up scrap dealing. Failing to make significant money, he switched careers to become a cloth merchant.
He is believed to have turned a radical after one of his cousins was burnt alive during communal riots in Maharashtra's Bhiwandi in the eighties. According to sources, Tunda was allegedly indoctrinated into terrorist activities by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI in the eighties, which also trained him in making improvised explosive devices.
But Tunda earned notoriety and came on the police radar after the Mumbai serial bombings in 1993.
Police say before he got involved in the 1993 Mumbai bombings, he had constituted a 'tanzeem' - an organisation set up with the lofty aim of working for the community - Tanzeem Islah-ul-Muslimeen (Islamic Armed Organization) with one Jalees Ansari, a resident of Mumbai.
In 1993, Tunda and Ansari had set off a series of explosions in Mumbai and Hyderabad and seven separate bomb blasts on trains. After Ansari's arrest in January 1994, Tunda fled to Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh.
He returned from Dhaka to India to mastermind the deadly 1996-1998 blasts. In almost all the blasts in Delhi during 1996-98, Tunda's men, who were from Pakistan and Bangladesh, had detonated bombs using pencil batteries, he said.
The most devastating of these attacks were blasts in a crowded private bus at Punjabi Bagh in New Delhi in December 1997. Four people had died in that attack and 24 others were injured.
Subsequently, Tunda fled to Pakistan via Bangladesh, from his home in Ghaziabad in 1998.
The hunt for Tunda died down in 2000 when Indian intelligence agencies believed a news item that he has been killed. He returned to the surveillance radar in August 2005 when Abdul Razzak Masood, an alleged LeT chief coordinator in Dubai arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi police, disclosed that Tunda was alive and had met him in Lahore in December 2003.
Tunda's name surfaced again in July 2006 when Kenyan police claimed to arrest him. But it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity with the arrested person being a UK national.
Sources said Tunda had been guiding the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which later turned into Indian Mujahideen. He is also accused of motivating the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar to perpetrate attacks against the Buddhists there.
He had also tried to cause serial explosions in India in 2010, just before the Commonwealth Games, but failed.
Tunda, believed to be around 70 years old, is known as an "expert bomb maker" of the terror outfit Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT). He got the moniker Tunda (Hindi for without a hand) after his left hand got severed in an accident while preparing a bomb in 1985 in Mumbai. During interrogation by the Delhi Police, Tunda revealed he developed an interest in explosives right from childhood.
In the dossier handed over to Pakistan after the 26/11 attacks, Tunda ranks number 15 among the men wanted by India. The dossier claims he is close to Jamat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks. He is, according to sources, also association with Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's gang.
Even though he is more notorious for his bomb-making skills, Delhi Police sources say Tunda was now actively involved in recruiting and training of Jihadis, providing explosives and printing fake currency. During his interrogation, he admitted to running Madrasas across Pakistan called 'Mehdoot Talim Islami Darool Fanoon' - which receive donations from individuals and various terror groups and in turn provide young jihadis. He is also understood to be a motivational speaker and through his excellent network of operatives in Bangladesh was pushing material and men into India.
But before he took to terror, Tunda began his career as a carpenter. He soon switched jobs and started assisting his father in melting metals like copper, zinc and aluminium to earn a livelihood. After his father's death, Tunda, now the lone bread earner of his family, took up scrap dealing. Failing to make significant money, he switched careers to become a cloth merchant.
He is believed to have turned a radical after one of his cousins was burnt alive during communal riots in Maharashtra's Bhiwandi in the eighties. According to sources, Tunda was allegedly indoctrinated into terrorist activities by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI in the eighties, which also trained him in making improvised explosive devices.
But Tunda earned notoriety and came on the police radar after the Mumbai serial bombings in 1993.
Police say before he got involved in the 1993 Mumbai bombings, he had constituted a 'tanzeem' - an organisation set up with the lofty aim of working for the community - Tanzeem Islah-ul-Muslimeen (Islamic Armed Organization) with one Jalees Ansari, a resident of Mumbai.
In 1993, Tunda and Ansari had set off a series of explosions in Mumbai and Hyderabad and seven separate bomb blasts on trains. After Ansari's arrest in January 1994, Tunda fled to Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh.
He returned from Dhaka to India to mastermind the deadly 1996-1998 blasts. In almost all the blasts in Delhi during 1996-98, Tunda's men, who were from Pakistan and Bangladesh, had detonated bombs using pencil batteries, he said.
The most devastating of these attacks were blasts in a crowded private bus at Punjabi Bagh in New Delhi in December 1997. Four people had died in that attack and 24 others were injured.
Subsequently, Tunda fled to Pakistan via Bangladesh, from his home in Ghaziabad in 1998.
The hunt for Tunda died down in 2000 when Indian intelligence agencies believed a news item that he has been killed. He returned to the surveillance radar in August 2005 when Abdul Razzak Masood, an alleged LeT chief coordinator in Dubai arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi police, disclosed that Tunda was alive and had met him in Lahore in December 2003.
Tunda's name surfaced again in July 2006 when Kenyan police claimed to arrest him. But it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity with the arrested person being a UK national.
Sources said Tunda had been guiding the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which later turned into Indian Mujahideen. He is also accused of motivating the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar to perpetrate attacks against the Buddhists there.
He had also tried to cause serial explosions in India in 2010, just before the Commonwealth Games, but failed.
Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world
