After being on the run for almost three months, Muneer, the main accused in the murder of National Investigation Agency (NIA) officer Tanzil Ahmed and his wife Farzana, was nabbed by a Special Task Force team of the Uttar Pradesh police from Bishrakh in Noida on Tuesday morning.
A close associate of Muneer, Adnan Shakeel, was also taken into custody. Muneer was hiding at Adnan’s apartment in Ghaziabad for the past few days.
The police recovered a motorcycle, Rs. 90,000 in cash and three pistols, including a 9-mm service revolver, that Muneer had stolen in 2015 from the gunner of a judge in Lucknow.
“Three teams of U.P. police, including STF Agra, STF Noida and Aligarh police have been tracking Muneer for the last two months. When he was intercepted near a temple in the Bishrakh Thana area, the police asked him to surrender but he started firing at them. When the police retaliated, he panicked and dropped his weapon,” said Senior Superintendent of Police (STF West) Amit Pathak.
The police clarified that Mr. Ahmed’s murder had nothing to do with any terror probe and he was killed because of a grudge that Muneer and his friend Rehan (a relative of the slain officer) had against him.
Earlier attempts
Preliminary investigations suggest that Muneer, who was wanted in numerous criminal cases including murder and bank robbery, feared that the Mr. Ahmed would get him arrested as he had got a whiff of his “acts”. He also suspected the NIA officer of being a police informer and made several attempts to murder him near his house, said the police.
Described as a “shrewd criminal” by the police, Muneer carried a reward of Rs 2 lakh on his head.
After murdering Mr. Ahmed and his wife, he hid in various places, including Lucknow, Azamgarh and Nepal, and was on the verge of fleeing to Mumbai when he was nabbed.
