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Delhi Police Say They've Captured Most-Wanted Terrorist Known As 'India's Bin Laden'

A journalist looks at the remains of motorcycles at a bomb blast site outside a hospital in Ahmedabad on July 27, 2008. The bombing is one of several attributed to Abdul Subhan Qureshi, known as "India's Bin Laden."
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A journalist looks at the remains of motorcycles at a bomb blast site outside a hospital in Ahmedabad on July 27, 2008. The bombing is one of several attributed to Abdul Subhan Qureshi, known as "India's Bin Laden."

Police in New Delhi say they have captured a man who came to be known as "India's Bin Laden" for allegedly masterminding a series of deadly bombings across India over the past decade.

Indian authorities say that Abdul Subhan Qureshi planned bomb blasts that ripped through the western state of Gujarat in 2008, killing 56 people. He is also believed to have founded the militant group Indian Mujahideen and to have been behind deadly bombings in Mumbai in 2006, Delhi in 2010 and Bangalore in 2014.

"Abdul Subhan Qureshi was living with forged documents in Nepal. He came back to India to revive [the] Indian Mujahideen," Pramod Kushwaha, deputy commissioner of police in Delhi, said at a news conference in the capital on Monday.

India's Financial Express reports: "The 2008 ... bombings were a series of as many as 21 bomb blasts that had hit Ahmedabad on 26 July 2008 within a span of 70 minutes. As many as 56 people were killed and over 200 people were injured."

Qureshi, 46, also known as "Tauqeer," worked as a software engineer before becoming radicalized, according to Indian media.

Senior intelligence officers were quoted by The Times of India as saying they believe Qureshi eluded authorities several times over the years by changing his appearance.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Scott Neuman is a reporter and editor, working mainly on breaking news for NPR's digital and radio platforms.
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