New Delhi: One of India’s 20 most wanted terrorists, Abdul Karim Tunda, was arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police from the Indo-Nepal border last night and produced at a Delhi court this morning.

Tunda, around 70 years old, is accused of masterminding over 40 bomb blasts in New Delhi, Panipat, Sonepat, Ludhiana, Kanpur and Varanasi between December 1996 and January 1998 that left 21 dead and over 400 injured.

Born in western UP and allegedly indoctrinated into terrorist activities by Pakistan’s ISI in the eighties, Tunda was trained in making improvised explosive devices, police sources said.

After the serial blasts, Tunda allegedly fled to Bangladesh where he came under direct command of Lashkar chief Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi. He soon became LeT’s top bomb maker.

The hunt for Tunda died down in 2000 when Indian intelligence agencies believed a news item that he has been killed. He returned to the surveillance radar in August 2005 when Abdul Razzak Masood, an alleged LeT chief coordinator in Dubai arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi police, disclosed that Tunda was alive and had met him in Lahore in December 2003.

Tunda’s name surfaced again in July 2006 when Kenyan police claimed to arrest him. But it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity with the arrested person being a UK national.

Sources said Tunda had been guiding the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which later turned into Indian Mujahideen. He is also accused of motivating the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar to perpetrate attacks against the Buddhists there.

In the dossier handed over to Pakistan after the 26/11 attacks, Tunda ranks number 15. The dossier also claims he is close to Jamat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks.