‘Ailing’ Tunda gives city police tough time during questioning

The special cell of Delhi police is facing a tough time in its attempt to interrogate Lashkar-e-Toiba bomb expert Abdul Karim Tunda. On Wednesday, a special Delhi court had remanded Tunda in police custody for 10 days. 

Sources in the special cell said, ‘Tunda has been throwing a lot of tantrums on the pretext of ill health. In August, after his arrest the terrorist underwent a surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to implant a pacemaker in his heart. Whenever we start asking him questions, he says he is not feeling well which hampers the interrogation.’

‘No sooner we begin the interrogation, Tunda goes quiet and then demands water. He also makes frequent requests for brakes saying he needs rest,’ the source added.

‘We cannot talk loudly with him. We cannot put to use the usual techniques employed in questioning terrorists to extract out details about his associates who are still hiding in Bihar and other native places as per our inputs,’ the source said.

A senior police official, requesting anonymity told Millennium Post, ‘We want to cross-examine Tunda with his close terror associates — Mohmmad Zakariya, Alauddin and Mohmmad Basiruddin regarding the fake currency racket in India that was operated by all three of them along with Tunda. But so far we have not able to get the police custody of Alauddin and Basiruddin due to some technical reasons. But we managed to take 10 days custody of Zakariya.’

Zakariya, father-in-law of Tunda, was lodged in Presidency Jail in Kolkata. Zakariya had helped some Pakistani nationals in infiltrating into India to carry out various terror strikes which occurred in and around Delhi in 1998. Sources said, ‘Zakariya will be taken to certain particular places from where he helped Pakistani nationals infiltrate into India. We want to take Tunda along with his father-in-law, but few hurdles like Tunda’s health, the expiry of his custody, to mention a few are making us handicapped.’