India
NIA brings back key Lashkar-e-Taiba fugitive from Rwanda | India News – Times of India
As part of a terror radicalization and recruitment racket that originated in Bengaluru Central Jail, Salman was taken into custody by NIA on Wednesday, with the help of CBI’s Global Operations Centre, Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) and National Interpol Central Bureau – Kigali. and brought to India on Thursday morning.
An NIA spokesperson said Salman, who was earlier jailed in a POCSO case at the Bengaluru Central Jail, had facilitated the collection and distribution of explosives for other terror accused after he was radicalized and recruited by a fellow inmate and LeT mastermind behind the serial blasts in Bengaluru in 2008. T Naseer.
Naseer had orchestrated the radicalization and subsequent criminal activities, including plans to facilitate his own escape from prison on his way to court and a conspiracy to further LeT’s terror operations.
Salman had absconded and fled the country after the terror conspiracy/module was busted and was declared a fugitive. He was subsequently charged by the NIA under IPC, UA(P) Act, Arms Act and Explosive Substances Act.
Interpol has opened a red-corner notice against Salman after the NIA Special Court, Bengaluru, issued a non-bailable warrant against him. Based on Interpol’s notice, he was apprehended by authorities in Kigali, Rwanda, and NIA was informed of the arrest, which eventually led to his extradition and return to India.
Salman is the seventeenth fugitive accused of being extradited or deported in prominent NIA cases since 2020. Other suspects brought back in similar global collaborations include Tarsem Singh Sandhu, extradited from the UAE, and Bikramjit Singh (from Austria). Just last month, terrorist Baljeet Singh was deported from the UAE in a terror plot by the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF); and Vikramjit Singh Brar, Manpreet Singh, Amritpal Singh, Amrik Singh, Mandeep Singh and Ratheesh were deported from the UAE and the Philippines in 2023.
