Key LeT operative wanted in many blast cases in police net

An LeT operative, who was lodged in a Nepal jail, has been arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell from Uttar Pradesh, a police official said on Monday. 

Irfan Ahmad (49) managed to escape from the jail after the walls collapsed in the recent earthquake in Nepal. He was arrested in 2010 for attempting to obtain a new Nepalese citizenship on forged documents.

Ahmad, a fugitive terrorist, was wanted in several cases including serial train blasts in 1993 and abduction in Bihar. After his arrest in 1994, he got parole in 2001 to attend his brother’s wedding and was absconding since then. 

He was hiding in Nepal and in 2010 was arrested by Nepal police and was sentenced to five years imprisonment. His sentence was to end in July 2015 but during the earthquake he managed to flee. 

In 2006, his son — Mohd. Issa was arrested by the Special cell in two cases and he was convicted by the court in a case and was sentenced five years of imprisonment. However, in the other case he was released due to lack of evidence.  

A highly placed source in the Special Cell told Millennium Post: “After Issa was released we were keeping a tab on him through which the officials got to know that Irfan is hiding in Nepal. 

Through a specific conversation, it was learnt that he has been arrested in Nepal for forgery. Since then, we were keeping a vigil on Irfan’s custody with the Nepal police.”  

“The information was received that walls of Sindhupal Chowk Jail in Nepal collapsed in the earthquake and around 213 prisoners escaped from the premises. A team of the Special Cell was already alerted soon after he crossed the Indo-Nepal border and went to his residence in Bahraich in UP from where he was nabbed on May 7,” the source added.  

In 1994, Irfan was arrested by the Special Cell and later he was handed over to the CBI, which was investigating the serial bombings in train. CBI managed to arrest 15 others who were his associates. Since then, all of them were lodged in Tihar jail.  

During interrogation, Irfan confessed his involvement in the bomb blast and alleged that he had planted bombs in two Rajdhani trains, passing through Kanpur railway station on the intervening night of December 5 and 6, a year after the Babri mosque demolition.