Jalees Ansari, a convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, who went missing on Thursday just a day before his parole ends, has been arrested by Uttar Pradesh STF in Kanpur on Friday afternoon.
He was arrested when he was coming out from a mosque in Kanpur. He has been brought to Lucknow.
Ansari, also known as Dr Bomb, has been accused of plotting and executing over 50 bomb blasts across the country since early 90s.
Serving a lifer in Ajmer Jail, Rajasthan, he was released on December 28 on parole as per Supreme Court orders to visit his family in Mumbai, and was due to return to the prison on Friday, January 17. However, on Thursday, Ansari’s family members in Mominpada approached the Agripada police station in Mumbai and said that he had gone missing.
The Mumbai crime branch, Maharashtra ATS and other wings of Mumbai police launched a massive manhunt to trace and nab Ansari. Mumbai police control room along with the state control and the CCTV control room of Mumbai police had been alerted to look for Ansari.
A medico by profession who served with the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation at one point of time, Ansari had undergone terror and explosives training in Pakistan in the early 1990s.
He was finally convicted for the Jaipur serial blasts, Ajmer blast and Malegaon blast case and awarded a life sentence in jail.
Besides, Ansari was reportedly involved in several other blasts in Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad and other places ostensibly as vendetta for the felling of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992.
