Agencies
 
Mumbai/Thane, Aug 21: An accused in the March 12, 1993 serial blasts case was arrested by the Mumbai police Crime Branch from the Nallasopara area of Thane district – 15 years after the chain bombings claimed 257 lives, injured 713 others and damaged property of nearly Rs 27 crores.

The accused was identified as Karimulla Khan Osan Khan, who is said to be around 46 to 47 years and has been staying in the Thane district for the last couple of years.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria said that Karimullah has actively participated in the landings of RDX and weapons that took place at the Shekhadi coast of Raigad district and its subsequent transportation to Mumbra in Thane district and finally to Mumbai where these were distributes and the bombs were assembled.

Police sources said that Karimullah was a close aide of Ejaz Pathan, who was one of the main landing agents and an underworld don affiliated to Dawood Ibhrahim's crime empire.

Karimullah has stayed with Dawood and his brother Anees till 2006 in Karachi and then moved to Kathmandu from where he stepped into the Indian soil. Originally a resident of Cotton Green in Mumbai, since his arrival here he stayed in Mira Road suburbs and then to Nallasopara, one of the crowed suburbs of Mumbai.

He also carried a reward of Rs five lakh by the CBI and was on a Red Corner notice by Interpol. He was declared an absconder and proclaimed offender in the case, police officials said.

The Mumbai police will hand him over to the Special Task Force of the CBI, which probed the blasts – and of which the city police itself is part, which will produced him before the designated TADA court. He was arrested on Wednesday by unit-iv of the Crime Branch, Maria told reporters on Thursday, August 21, 2008.

The TADA court, according to sources, will carry out his trial separately.

In the early 1990s, he was arrested for the murder of a businessman Dilip Panchal at Kalachowki, in south-central part of the city. He managed to jump bail and the Mumbai police was on the lookout for him ever since, Maria said.