Abdul Karim Tunda held guilty in 1996 Sonipat blast case, sentencing tomorrow

Terrorist Abdul Karim Tunda has been pronounced guilty in 1996 Sonipat bomb blast case by Sonipat Court. The quantum of punishment will be pronounced on Tuesday.

Twin blasts had rocked Sonipats on December 28, 1996, injuring around a dozen people.

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.

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 Chattisgarh Express bomb blast near Ghaziabad railway station that claimed 19 lives.

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.

In 2001, after attack on Parliament, India demanded Tunda's extradition from Pakistan. Tunda's name was on number 15 in a dossier of "most wanted terrorists" that India handed over to Pakistan after 26/11 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 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 in 2010, but the plan was foiled as his accomplices were arrested.

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.

OneIndia News