Suspected Indian Mujahideen man behind bombings that killed 165 arrested

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police's special cell arrested a wanted Indian Mujahideen militant Ariz Khan from near the Nepal border on Tuesday. Ariz Khan alias Junaid had been on the run since the 2008 Batla House encounter in Delhi. Police said Ariz is an expert bomb-maker, executioner and conspirator. He wanted for his involvement in various bomb blast cases in Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Uttar Pradesh. Ariz was associated with Atif Amin, who was killed in Batala House encounter, police said. He was present at Batla House, along with four others, and had managed to give police the slip during the encounter on September 19, 2008 in Delhi's Jamia Nagar, in which two Indian Mujahideen terrorists were killed and two were arrested. Encounter specialist and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led the police action, was also killed during the operation. After the Batla House encounter, he stayed in India for some time before fleeing to Nepal. Ariz was arrested from Banbasa in Uttarakhand, where he had come to meet his accomplices. Around 165 people died in the incidents of crime that Khan was involved in, the police said.