Syed Abdul Karim, alias Tunda (born 1943), was a bomb maker of terror outfit

Lashkar-e-Toiba Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT; ur, ; literally ''Army of the Good'', translated as ''Army of the Righteous'', or ''Army of the Pure'' and alternatively spelled as ''Lashkar-e-Tayyiba'', ''Lashkar-e-Toiba'', ''Lashkar-i-Taiba'', ''Lashkar-i-Tayyeba'') ...

, and was accused of masterminding over 40 bombings in India supported by Pakistani terrorists. He was arrested by Indian authorities on 16 August 2013 from the India-Nepal border at Banbasa. However, the exact timings of this arrest is disputed with various versions being reported.. Later, he received a clean chit by a Delhi court in all four cases against him, although he was sentenced to life imprisonment for bomb blasts in

Sonipat Sonipat is a city, municipal corporation and administrative headquarter in Sonipat district of Haryana state of India. It comes under the National Capital Region and is around from New Delhi. It is also around 214 km (128 miles) southwest o ...

, Haryana.

Early life

Born in 1943 at Chatta Lal Miya area in central Delhi's Dariyaganj area, he started his career as a carpenter at his native village in Bazaar Khurd area in

Pilkhuwa Pilkhuwa is a town and a municipal board in Hapur district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located 12 km from Hapur, the district headquarters. It is famous for its textile products and handloom industry. It is located on Nation ...

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

Ghaziabad district Ghaziabad () is a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and a part of Delhi NCR. It is the administrative headquarters of Ghaziabad district and is the largest city in western Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 1,729,000. Ghaziabad Mun ...

. He married for the first time here in Uttar Pradesh. He came to Behrampura, Ahmedabad in 1982 and started carpentry and scrap business. He looked after a mosque and taught holy books to children. He married for the second time, Mumtaz and had a son, Irshaan after a year of a marriage. He returned to Delhi in 1989. He married for the third time an 18-year-old girl, at the age of 65 in Pakistan. He has 6 children.

Later life

He came under the police radar after the Mumbai serial bombings in 1993. He got the moniker ''Tunda'' – Hindi/ Bengali (Bangla) for without a hand or physically handicapped- after his left hand got severed in an accident while preparing a bomb in 1985 in Mumbai. His younger brother Abdul Malik, who still is a carpenter, is reportedly the only immediate family member alive in India. He also stayed in Pakistan where he is known to have imparted training on the fabrication of IED and other explosives to mujahids who were sent to India from Pakistan for jihad. During his stay in Pakistan, he had been in touch with organisations like ISI, LeT,

Jaish-e-Mohammed Jaish-e-Mohammed ( ur, , literally "The Army of Muhammad", abbreviated as JeM) is a Pakistan-based: "The JEM is a Pakistan-based, militant Islamic group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in March 2000." Deobandi: "Deobandis like Masood Azha ...

Indian Mujahideen Indian Mujahideen (IM) is an Islamic terrorist group which has been particularly active in India. The jihadist group was founded as an offshoot of the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) by several radicalized members including Iqbal Bh ...

and

Babbar Khalsa Babbar Khalsa International (BKI, pa, ਬੱਬਰ ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ, ), better known as Babbar Khalsa, is an organisation whose main objective is to create an independent Sikh country, Khalistan. It operates in Canada, Germany and the United ...

and had been meeting people like

Hafiz Saeed Hafiz Muhammad Saeed ( ur, , born 5 June 1950) is a Pakistani Islamism, Islamist who co-founded Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based Islamist militant organization that is List of designated terrorist groups, designated as a terrorist grou ...

Maulana Masood Azhar Mohammad Masood Azhar Alvi is a radical Islamist and terrorist, being the founder and leader of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed, active mainly in the Pakistani-administered portion of the Kashmir region. His actions ...

, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi,

Dawood Ibrahim Dawood Ibrahim (; born 26 December 1955) is an Indian mafia gangster, drug kingpin, and wanted terrorist from Dongri, Mumbai. He reportedly heads the Indian organised crime syndicate D-Company, which he founded in Mumbai in the 1970s. Ibrahim ...

and several others wanted by India. He used an elaborate network of human traffickers and fake currency suppliers active in Bangladesh. Tunda has also been associated with

Rohingya The Rohingya people () are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an ...

operatives in the past. His association with LeT commanders Rehan alias Zafar and Azam Cheema alias Babajee is well known.

Role in terrorism

After being indoctrinated by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the 1980s, Tunda became a jihadi at the age of 40. After allegedly masterminding 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, in 1994, he fled to Bangladesh where he taught making bombs to jihadi elements and in 1998, he acted as 'mentor' to give training to younger generation of Lashkar operatives in terror camps in Pakistan. In 1994, Tunda's name surfaced in Chhattisgarh Express bomb blast near Ghaziabad railway station that claimed 19 lives. In 1994, it is said that Delhi Police and the intelligence bureau also raided Ashok Nagar area after receiving a tip-off from sources. But Tunda managed to escape before being nabbed. But, security agencies found explosives, detonators, Pak made weapons and objectionable documents written in Urdu from his hideout in huge quantity. In 1996, an Interpol Red Corner notice was issued against Tunda. In 1997, after returning to India, he was involved in a bomb blast that took place near Punjabi Bagh in west Delhi in a Blueline bus that killed at least four people and injured around 24 people. It is believed that he died in a blast in Bangladesh in 2000 but Abdul Razzaq, an LeT operative arrested by the Delhi police in 2005, revealed about his presence in Pakistan. Tunda's name was on number 15 in a dossier of "most wanted terrorists" that India handed over to Pakistan after

26/11 The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11, pronounced "twenty six eleven") were a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist terrorist organisation from Pakistan, ...

Mumbai terror attacks. He is also believed to be guiding the banned Students Islamic Movement of India ( SIMI), which later turned into Indian Mujahideen. Besides that, he was planning to 'recruit'

Rohingyas The Rohingya people () are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an ...

from Myanmar to target Buddhists there. He had also tried to carry out serial explosions in the national capital Delhi, just before the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

in 2010, but the plan was foiled as his accomplices were arrested. According to reports, it has emerged that Tunda aims at carrying out blasts at crowded places and inflict maximum casualties. A close aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and top LeT commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, an "expert bomb maker", Tunda is accused of masterminding over 40 cases of bomb blasts in Mumbai, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Hyderabad and Surat. 70-year-old Tunda is one of the prized catch by the Delhi police in the war against terror, who took shelter in various countries after fleeing India 20 years back. He also had a major hand in spreading Laskhar-e-Taiba's network outside Jammu and Kashmir.

Arrest

The Special Cell of Delhi Police arrested 70 years old Tunda on 16 August 2013 at around 3 pm in Uttarakhand's Banbasa area close to the Nepal border on the basis of an information provided by R&AW, He was possessing a Pakistani passport issued on 23 January 2013. He was arrested in 2013, and was taken to court. Delhi court discharges LeT bomb expert Abdul Karim Tunda. Tunda was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court in October 2017 for his involvement in the 1996 Sonepat bomb blasts in Haryana.

Health

He was admitted to

AIIMS The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is a group of autonomous government public medical universities of higher education under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare , Government of India. These institutes h ...

New Delhi upon report of Health Complications. The

angiography Angiography or arteriography is a medical imaging technique used to visualize the inside, or lumen, of blood vessels and organs of the body, with particular interest in the arteries, veins, and the heart chambers. Modern angiography is perfor ...

procedure revealed blockages in vessels in his heart. Doctors have implanted a Pacemaker into his heart after taking permission from his Lawyer Advocate M S Khan.Terrorist Abdul Karim Tunda gets a Pacemaker at AIIMS
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References