MEERUT: The UP Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in coordination with Moradabad police arrested a fugitive, allegedly linked with Pak-based terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen, who had been on the run for nearly 18 years and had a bounty of Rs 25,000 on his head. Notably, the terrorist was in the “most wanted” list of Moradabad police ever since he had gone into hiding in 2008.
“ATS, UP, received intelligence that a person involved in terrorist activities was hiding in Fazalabad, Surankote, Poonch district, J&K. Acting on this input, a joint police team launched a coordinated operation and arrested the fugitive terrorist, Ulfat Hussain, 52,” read an official statement released on Saturday.
SP (Moradabad city), Kumar Ranvijay Singh, said, “Ulfat was earlier arrested in 2002 along with four young men from Moradabad.”
“He was incarcerated for five years in Bareilly jail from where he got bail in 2008, and went into hiding since then. The additional chief judicial magistrate, Moradabad, had issued a permanent warrant (for 30 years) against him on Jan 7, 2015,” Singh added.
Elaborating upon Ulfat’s association with UP, Singh said, “Ulfat’s links with UP goes way back to 1991 when after clearing his Class XII in J&K he moved to Bareilly for religious studies. A year later, he moved to Rampur and attended another religious course. In 1995, he again moved to Moradabad and became a cleric at a local mosque. In 1997, he went back to his hometown in Kashmir and began teaching religious texts to the locals.”
In 1999, his father became a sarpanch at his village which was frequented by people from PoK and there, Ulfat began getting influenced by them.
Later, he went to Fatehpur Takhiala, also known as Nakyal in PoK, where he allegedly came in contact with Hizbul operatives.
There he took training specifically aimed at carrying out terror-related activities in India.
