Syed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, the suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist who was recently deported for alleged involvement in terror strikes, had been living in Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport issued under a pseudonym.
The passport purportedly used by Ansari was issued in the name of Riyasat Ali on January 28, 2009, showing him as a resident of Sheikhupura in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It mentions his father’s name as Khushi Mohammad and has a validity up to January 27, 2014. The passport, however, bears Ansari’s photograph.
The investigating agencies found that the passport had a valid Saudi Arabian visa. According to sources, the accused visited Saudi Arabia twice using the same passport, once in 2010 and then in 2011 after which he stayed there for about seven months before he was picked up in Riyadh by the local intelligence agencies on a tip-off by their Indian counterparts. It is alleged that Ansari was in Saudi Arabia to recruit people for the outfit and had managed to indoctrinate a few persons. However, it is not confirmed if anyone of them had been sent for terror training.
The Indian intelligence and enforcement agencies were on the lookout for Ansari since 2006 after his name cropped up during the interrogation of some suspected LeT terrorists.
DNA match
It is learnt that on the basis of the said passport, the Pakistani officials tried to obtain Ansari’s custody stating that he was a Pakistani national. However, Indian authorities were successful in securing his deportation after they got his DNA samples matched with those of his father, a resident of Beed in Maharashtra, following a clandestine operation.
Subsequently, Ansari was arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell in a case (54/2011) registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act last year. Some more persons were earlier arrested in that case.
