New Delhi, July 22
In a dramatic twist to the reports that one of India’s most wanted men, Syed Abdul Karim alias Tunda, had been nabbed in Mombasa, the Kenyan police said tonight that the arrested man was a West African national amid media reports that he had been handed over to the FBI.
Tunda, founder of the Laskher-e-Taiba in India and wanted for several blasts in Mumbai, Delhi and other places in the country during 1993-98, was said to have been arrested in Mombasa on Thursday night — news that had been received with great satisfaction by security agencies here.
However, the Kenyan police spokesman M Kibunja told PTI that the arrested person was not an Indian but a West African national. “He has nothing to do with the Mumbai blasts,” Kibunja said.
The Kenya Times newspaper had reported that a man suspected to be linked to a series of terrorist attacks in East Africa and India was arrested on Thursday and deported to an unknown country.
The suspect, arrested on the Kenya-Tanzania border, was linked to the attacks on Mumbai’s commuter trains that killed 200 people, the newspaper said quoting
Poilce sources.
Security agencies here are baffled by the sudden turn of events and are extremely unsatisfied with the version given by the Kenyan police.
Efforts will be made on Monday, the first working day after the weekend, to officially ask the Kenyan authorities about the matter, official sources said.
— PTI
