CHENNAI: The Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday arrested Taufiq, an extremist from Tamil Nadu who was allegedly involved in the explosives seizure at Kodungaiyur in 1997 and the attempt to murder Hindu Munnani chief Ramagopalan in 2008. An intelligence team has left for Delhi to arrest Taufiq.Police sources said Taufiq had links with terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and was also wanted in connection with the Hyderabad and Ghatkopar blast cases. Taufiq alias Abdullah Taufiq (38), a native of Athiramapatinam near Thanjavur, had gone absconding since 2005. He was arrested by the Mumbai police in connection with the bus bomb blast case in 2002 in Mumbai. He was detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), but was acquitted with seven other accused after three years. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Special Branch CID, which was closely monitoring his movements, traced him to a village in UP. He is also allegedly associated with the Muslim Defence Force and other terrorist groups.Taufiq was staying in a mosque for the last three years and tried to dominate the locals. Hence, they tipped off the TN special unit, a police officer said here. The TN intelligence unit and the anti-terrorist squad of UP police maintained surveillance at the mosque for over a month. In the wee hours of Tuesday, the cops nabbed Taufiq while he was emerging out of the mosque. “A special SIT team from TN has headed to Delhi to interrogate Taufiq in terror-related cases pending in Pattukottai and Chennai,” the police officer said. The Tamil Nadu ‘Q’ branch sleuths arrested three persons in May 2008 and during questioning, they learnt that the gang had plotted to eliminate Ramagopalan. Taufiq managed to escape.
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