NEW DELHI: Less than 24 hours after Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf offered full cooperation in Indian counter-terrorism efforts, police in Mombassa, Kenya, have announced the arrest of one of the three founder-members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba's pan-India operations.

A one-time resident of Pikhuwa in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district, 1943-born Syed Abdul Karim `Tunda' was one of the 20 terrorists whose extradition India unsuccessfully demanded from Pakistan after the 2001 attack on Parliament House — a list that includes Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and his Jaish-e-Mohammad counterpart Maulana Azhar Masood Alvi.

Widely known by his nickname `Tunda' — obtained after he lost his left hand in a bomb-making accident — Karim is thought to have been located on the basis of intelligence provided by India's external covert service, the Research and Analysis Wing. Although he was named in an Interpol red-corner notice issued in 1996, Karim is believed to have shuttled between Dhaka, Kathmandu and Lahore using fake travel documents.

Few details available

Little information has so far become available on the precise circumstances of Karim's arrest. Authorities have offered no comment on key details, including the country from where his journey to Mombassa commenced or the date of his arrival. However, police in Mombassa did say that Karim was found in possession of several different passports and was "surly and confrontational" when arrested.

The Central Bureau of Investigation had charged Karim with organising the Lashkar's first major strike outside of Jammu and Kashmir — a series of 43 bombings in Mumbai and Hyderabad and seven separate explosions on inter-city trains on December 6, 1993 that claimed two lives. Between 1996 and 1998, Karim organised 33 other bombings in Delhi, Rohtak and Jalandhar, in which 21 persons were killed and upwards of 400 injured.

Although he was not directly involved in perpetrating bombings after 1998, Karim acted as a mentor for a younger generation of Lashkar operatives, financing and organising operations across India. No explanation of just what Karim was doing in Mombassa has been offered by authorities, but officials believe he might have been using a safe house provided by organised crime figures in the port city.

Officials in New Delhi said Karim's arrest marked a victory for the aggressive diplomatic posture adopted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the wake of the July 11 Mumbai bombings.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna on Friday reiterated India's demand that Pakistan hand over top terrorists, including Hizb ul-Mujahideen chief Mohammad Yusuf Shah and organised-crime baron Dawood Ibrahim Kaksar.

CBI officials, along with legal experts from the Ministry of External Affairs, are scheduled to travel to Nairobi in the next few days. If adequate evidence is presented to prove that Karim is an Indian national, Kenya may exercise its sovereign right to deport the Lashkar operative. Alternatively, India will be obliged to engage in the more time-consuming process of demanding his extradition.

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