AHMEDABAD: Seventy-year-old Saiyad AbdulKarim alias Tunda, is perhaps the biggest and most important catch in recent times for national security agencies. Not without reason – considered a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) ideologue – Tunda is thought to be involved in multiple bombings in India and also in contact with countless terror operatives including Dawood Ibrahim. Tundawas caught on the India-Nepal border on August 16.
What he says now, is of extreme importance to interrogators, who hope to reveal the connections between various terror outfits and intricatenetworks of sleeper cells in the county. Delhi police’s special cell thus has roped in experts from the Directorate of Forensic Sciences (DFS),Gandhinagar, to ascertain the veracity of his statements.
A team of two forensic psychologists has been sent to Delhi three days ago, to assist the probe there. They are expected to return this weekend.
In the past DFS experts conducted psychological tests and narco-analyses on accused in high-profile cases including the Ahmedabad serial blasts case and on former Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) members.
A senior DFS official, while speaking to TOI, said interrogation of senior members of terror outfits is a tough job. “More often than not, they know what to reveal and how to reveal information that may not be relevant or not help the probe. It is thus the job of an investigator to keep the questioning on the right track and find the suspect’s attempts to mislead. This is where the forensic psychoanalyst and psychologist come in. They conduct tests such as projective test, psychopathology test and personality test,” said the official.
Sources said Tunda has refused to undergo any ‘intrusive’ tests such as lie-detection and narco-analysis citing old age. “The results of the tests will be given to special cell of the Delhi police after analysis. This could take at least a week,” said a DFS official.
Delhi police had earlier said that Tunda accepted that he worked with Azam Chima, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Hafiz Saeed and Bada Sahib, and was also associated with Dawood Ibrahim.
So far, Tunda has provided a number of details about terror operations in the country.
Parth Shastri Archive 