The Hindu : National : Kenyan police say it's Olatunde, not `Tunda'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 25, 2006

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National

Kenyan police say it's Olatunde, not `Tunda'

New Delhi: A suspected terrorist arrested by the Kenyan police five days ago has turned out to be a British national, but security agencies here are wondering how he was initially said to be one of India's most wanted militants, Syed Abdul Karim `Tunda.'

Denying that `Tunda' was the arrested man, the Kenyan police informed the CBI "the person who was arrested by them was Ismoila Olatunde Rufai on the suspicion of his involvement in terrorist activities.

"He [Olatunde] is a British passport holder, born in London, to Nigerian parents and he has been deported from Kenya to the United Kingdom on July 24, 2006 [Monday]," the communication said.

`Tunda,' founder of the Laskhar-e-Taiba in India and wanted for several blasts in Mumbai, Delhi and other places in the country during 1993-98, was said to have been arrested in the port city of Mombassa with two others on Thursday night.

Earlier, news reports from Mombassa quoting police had said the arrested person was `Tunda.'

About the other two detained persons, the Kenyan police said Abdul Hussein Mumin and Abdul Gulgalo were also not Indian nationals but were Kenyans of Somali origin.

"They have been interviewed in connection with the enquiry regarding an abandoned motor vehicle and subsequently released," the communication said. Efforts were on to ascertain how the news of the arrest of `Tunda' had emerged in the first place. Indian High Commissioner in Nairobi Surendra Kumar is understood to have approached the Kenyan Foreign Office for a meeting with an official of the level of Foreign Secretary for this purpose, official sources said here.

The Kenyan officials conveyed to the Indian mission on Saturday that the person picked up in Mombassa was not disabled below his wrist. `Tunda,' while making a bomb in the early 1990s, lost his hand.

The CBI has sent to the Indian Mission in Nairobi a dossier of `Tunda' and the business interests of Dawood Ibrahim in Mombassa.

Besides this, contacts were established with the local attaché of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) here to seek their help in ascertaining the fact about the arrest of `Tunda' as media reports suggested that he had been handed over to the U.S. agency for questioning.

The suspect classified as the "most wanted terrorist" is linked to the Kikambala bombing in November 2002, a newspaper reported.

The CBI secured an Interpol red corner notice against `Tunda' after he fled the country in the mid-1990s.

PTI

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