Tunda part of first Lashkar cell in India

Tunda part of first Lashkar cell in India Deeptiman Tiwary TNN  New Delhi: Arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Abdul Karim Tunda was not only part of the first LeT cell in the country but also responsible for sending several Pakistani terrorists into India in the mid-90s while sitting in Bangladesh. He, however, got little support from Muslims within the country and several of his big plans could not fructify, sources in the security establishment said.     After his associate from Mumbai Dr Jalees Ansari, responsible for a series of blasts in the city, was arrested in 1994, Tunda fled to Bangladesh and then to Pakistan. By 1996, he was operating out of Dhaka in close association with Islamic Chhatra Shibir, sources said. He used his and the Shibir’s contacts to send several LeT operatives to India who were to set up cells outside of Jammu and Kashmir.      One of the first Pakistani militants he sent to India was Kamran — a Delhi-born man whose family had shifted to Pakistan. Kamran was part of the LeT apparatus and was asked by his bosses to work with Tunda. Kamran was responsible for the series of blasts that ripped through Delhi and Punjab in the mid-90s, sources said.     Following him was Pakistani LeT operative Salim Junaid who had worked with Kamran in Lashkar’s Muzaffarabad office. Junaid had earlier tried to enter India in the early 90s but failed. It was Tunda who finally made it possible. However, Kamran found it tough to set up a sleeper module in India.     He set foot in Delhi and tried to garner support from Tablighi Jamaat without any result. His efforts to rally support in Mumbai, Bhiwandi and make new contacts in Delhi also remained unsuccessful.     “At that time, pan-Islamic terror had not touched India and communalism hadn’t disturbed its social fabric as deeply as it has today. It was not easy to get local support for terror activities. In fact, Tunda’s oldest associate, Hyderabad’s Azam Ghauri, was refused burial in the community burial ground after he was killed in an encounter by police in 2000,” said a official from the security establishment.      Interestingly, it was in Hyderabad that Junaid finally found shelter with help from an LeT contact and legitimized his stay by marrying a local girl and joining the Students Islamic Movement of India while continuing his terror activities. He was, however, arrested in 1998 along with some Pakistani associates.     Some others to enter India using Tunda’s network were Abdul Sattar, Shoaib Alam and Faisal Hussain who were all arrested in 1998 by Delhi Police from UP with a huge cache of arms and explosives.     In 1999, police had arrested around a dozen members of an LeT cell in Jammu and Kashmir and found that its chief operative, Pakistani national Amir Khan, had married into a family in Bhiwandi, a place where Tunda worked earlier. I was in constant touch with former ISI chief Hamid Gul, claims Tunda  New Delhi: Top Lashkar bomb expert Abdul Karim Tunda told interrogators that he had come in contact with Pakistan's spy agency ISI after meeting former ISI chief Hamid Gul in 1995 and was in constant touch with him thereafter.     Delhi Police officials said Tunda, a close aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, had met Gul after reaching Pakistan via Saudi Arabia. Investigators said the 70-year-old terrorist has told them that that ISI was the official arm which has got several other “tanzeems” (organizations) like LeT, Jamaat-ud-Dawa under its umbrella to carry out various tasks. The handlers call these tanzeems as social organizations.     Tunda, who was holding a Pakistani passport with the name Abdul Quddus, was arrested on Friday from an area on the Indo-Nepal border after being on the run in several countries for 19 years.     During his stay in Pakistan, Tunda told the police he had been in touch with organisations like ISI, LeT, Jaish-e- Mohammed, Indian Mujahiddin and Babbar Khalsa and had been meeting people like Hafiz Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Dawood Ibrahim and several others wanted by India.     “Tunda has told us that most of the current LeT operatives are Punjabis. They are paid a meager sum of Rs 3000-4000 per month,” said a senior police official.     However, Gul who served as the Director General of ISI from 1987 to 1989, rubbished these claims. PTI