Police yesterday arrested an alleged activist of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) wanted in several cases of terror attacks from near the Nepal border. He had been on the run since the 2008 Batla House encounter here, police said.
According to the police, Ariz Khan alias Junaid is an expert bomb-maker, executioner and conspirator, and had been wanted for his involvement in various bomb blast cases in Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Uttar Pradesh.
Khan,32, was arrested from Banbasa in Uttarakhand, where he had gone to meet his accomplices.
At least 165 people died in the incidents of crime that Khan was involved in, the police said, adding that he was present along with four others in Batla House during the encounter but had managed to escape.
“This is a big success,” declared Pramod Singh Kushwah, a senior Delhi police officer who oversaw the operation that led to Khan’s arrest.
Kushwah said Khan, along with another engineer Abdul Subhan Qureshi also known as Tauqeer, were trying to revive the Indian Mujahideen. Qureshi was arrested last month by the Delhi police.
After the Batla House incident, he stayed in India for some time before fleeing to Nepal where he got hold of a Nepali citizenship card and passport in the name of Salim. Initially, he tried his hand at running a restaurant but later started teaching in different schools in Nepal.
He again came in touch with Riyaz Bhatkal, the Indian Mujahideen founder, who motivated him to travel to Saudi Arabia to raise money to revive the group in September 2014.
“For a cover, he worked as a labourer and also met with many sympathisers there,” Kushwah said.
He returned to Nepal from Saudi Arabia in March 2017 and would occasionally travel to India.
Some of Khan’s accomplices had links with the Islamic State terror group, the police said.


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