Militant Linked to LeT, Dawood Nabbed in Dhaka
An Indian militant living in Bangladesh since 1995 has been captured in Dhaka with officials claiming that he has links with Pakistan-based terrorist groups as well as underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, said media reports.
Obaidullah, an old hand of the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan, organized “jihad” under instructions from Amir Reza, leader of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), he told the investigators.
He had collaboration with Islamist militants in Jammu and Kashmir and was involved in terror attacks in Indian cities, Hoque was quoted as saying by The Daily Star. He was also working for absconding mafia don Dawood Ibrahim, the report said.
Obaidullah claimed to have been in hiding from Indian law.
“In 1994, Indian commandos went to West Bengal from Delhi by helicopters to arrest me but I managed to evade arrest and later left India,” Obaidullah told media persons.
Police said that four more people found involved in militancy and wanted by India are hiding in Bangladesh.
Detective Branch officials led by Deputy Police Commissioner Monirul Islam identified Obaidullah on the basis of confessions made by Abdur Rauf Daud Merchant, another Dawood Ibrahim conduit who fled India during home leave after being convicted in the murder of Bollywood music baron Gulshan Kumar in 1997.
Merchant was nabbed in May while hiding in a village in eastern Bangladesh and has made confessions of his underworld and militant links in a court here. Obaidullah confirmed what Merchant had earlier said about Dawood Ibrahim running a network of local agents that includes women.
Sources said that Mufti Obaidullah has a PhD degree on fatwa (religious edict) from Darul Uloom, the international centre of Islamic theology in India’s Uttar Pradesh state. While hiding in Bangladesh under assumed name Abu Zafar, he was a teacher at Jamiatul Sunnah Madrasa at Shibchar upazila in Madaripur since 2003. He had taken up jobs as a religious teacher at different seminaries Bangladesh during his stay.
Mufti Obaidullah, who was paraded before the media on Friday, was described by Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner AKM Shahidul Hoque as “one of the most wanted Indian terrorists”.
