NIA gets Jundal’s custody till Oct 20

New Delhi  :  A special court Monday handed over the police custody of 26/11 suspect Abu Jundal to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) till Oct 20, sources said.

Special NIA Judge H.S. Sharma handed the custody of Jundal to NIA to quiz him in-camera. The NIA had sought Jundal’s custody to question him to unearth terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba’s conspiracy for strikes across India.

Sending Jundal to judicial custody, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Vidya Parkash last Thursday directed jail authorities to present him in an NIA court on Oct 8.

NIA had told the CMM that a fresh production warrant for Jundal was issued by an NIA designated court and its earlier application for permission for his production before the NIA court was already pending.

Jundal was brought before the court Oct 4 by Maharashtra Police, who told court that he was not required for investigation in their state anymore.

Giving priority to various cases in Mumbai, a court here July 20 had handed over his custody to Maharashtra police.

Mumbai police had taken Jundal into custody to interrogate his alleged involvement in Mumbai’s 26/11 attack, the 2010 German Bakery blast in Pune, the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case and a plot to attack the Nashik Police Academy.

The court had also directed that after completion of the interrogation of the accused in the aforesaid four cases, he should be brought back to Delhi so that the issue of handing over of his custody to other agencies may be considered.

Mumbai’s 26/11 attack in 2008 by 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists left 166 people dead and 238 injured. The German Bakery blast on Feb 13, 2010, killed 17 people and injured at least 60 more.

In the Aurangabad case, the Anti-Terror Squad had seized 43 kg of RDX, 50 hand grenades, 16 AK-47 rifles and over 3,000 live bullets from two cars on the Chandaud-Manmad Highway in Aurangabad.