Shamsul Huda, a Dubai-based mastermind who allegedly plotted train accidents in India by planting IEDs on the railway tracks, has been detained in Nepal. Huda was detained by the Nepalese police after he was deported from Dubai. A senior NIA official on Tuesday morning confirms the arrest, and termed Huda’s arrest as a big breakthrough in its investigation into three cases – the failed attempt to detonate an IED on the tracks in East Champaran, the suspected sabotage angle behind Indore-Patna Express train accident in Kanpur, and the Koneru train accident.
NIA is already connected with Nepalese officials and will seek access to Huda for questioning. The NIA found Bihar police’s line of analysis pointing to an ISI-backed sabotage plan to cause train accidents in India, to be accurate and is probing more.
“There are no contradictions whatsoever in what they had told the Bihar police earlier and now the Central agencies. They seem to be very sure of and consistent in their ‘disclosures’. Also, technical evidence points to conversations between the arrested accused on the one hand and Nepalese handler Brij Kishore Giri, Dubai-based mastermind Shamsul Huda as well as Karachi-based suspected ISI agent Shafi Shaikh on the other, lending credence to the ISI involvement theory,” said a home ministry officer.
Reportedly, Umashankar Patel, one of the three accused arrested by Bihar Police, had spoken to both Shamsul Huda and Shafi Shaikh when the two masterminds were together in Dubai in August. “They discussed conspiracy to cause train accidents in India by planting IEDs on the tracks. The discussion was general in nature and did not raise any specific mention of the impending sabotage plans for Ghorasahan or Kanpur,” said an officer.
“That they were in direct touch with Huda as well as an alleged Karachi-based kingpin having links with the ISI, has led NIA to strongly suspect an ISI angle to the alleged sabotage involving passenger trains in India,” said an NIA officer.
