The 46-year-old was in the capital on Saturday night to meet one of his old associates, when the special cell, following intelligence, laid a trap to arrest him.
The police arrested Abdul Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqeer — one of India's most wanted terrorists — from East Delhi's Ghazipur area after a brief encounter on Saturday night, ending a nine-year chase by central agencies and anti-terror units of eight states.
He was the mastermind of serial blasts in Gujarat and Delhi in 2008. A total of 21 blasts had rocked Ahmedabad and Surat, killing 56 people and wounding over 200. His name had also figured in the July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, and many other terror attacks in the country.
He hid in Nepal, Saudi Arabia and remote parts of India, and was often referred to as "India's Bin Laden". The breakthrough came just before Republic Day celebrations on Friday.
He was the co-founder of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen and was known as its top bomb-maker. He was former head of the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), a banned Islamist organisation. A software engineer by profession, Qureshi has worked in top-notch IT firms at high salaries. He studied in Mumbai.
He was on the most-wanted list of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and was being hunted by the anti-terror units of Gujarat, Delhi, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.
The 46-year-old was in the capital on Saturday night to meet one of his old associates, when the special cell, following intelligence, laid a trap to arrest him.
"About 12 rounds were fired from both sides. We have found pistols and documents he was carrying. He was trying to revive SIMI and Indian Mujahideen in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh," said Pramod Kushwaha, DCP, Special Cell. During his late teens, Qureshi joined SIMI in the 1990s and worked as a co-instructor. In 2008, when SIMI General Secretary Safdar Nagori was arrested, he left SIMI and joined hands with the Bhatkal brothers and founded the Indian Mujahideen.
He later met Riaz Bhatkal in Pune in 2008 and decided to carry out a series of blasts. "He masterminded Gujarat serial blast. After these blasts he bought a colour television and distributed sweets to celebrate. Later to evade arrest he changed his base from Patna to Ranchi and to many other places in India, before fleeing to Nepal via Raxaul. In Nepal he worked as a teacher and also pretended to be running an NGO," the officer said.
In 2015, using a fake Nepalese passport, he fled to Saudi Arabia and stayed there till 2017, to revive IM and raise funds.
Kushwaha said that his name also surfaced in the July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, but his involvement is yet to be ascertained. His role in Bangalore blasts has also surfaced. His name as a recruiter emerged after the arrests of the Haider Ali module and the Patna blasts of 2013.
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