Farooq Takla, Dawood aide and 1993 Mumbai blasts key conspirator, arrested

Twenty-five years after a series of bomb blasts rocked Mumbai, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI has arrested key conspirator Yasin Mansoor Mohammed Farooq, alias Farooq Takla, believed to be a close aide to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

The 57-year-old Farooq was arrested in Dubai by local authorities and deported to India on Thursday morning, a CBI spokesperson said.

Farooq will be produced before a special court trying cases under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention)Aact, or Tada, in Mumbai, the spokesperson said.

Twelve bombs went off in Mumbai, then known as Bombay, between 1.30pm and 3.40pm on March 12, 1993, killing a total of 257 people and injuring 713 more. The locations where the bombs were detonated included the Bombay Stock Exchange and Air India building.

According to the CBI, Takla and his brother Mohmad Ahmad Mansoor provided logistic support to some of the blast accused in Dubai, from where they were sent for arms training to Pakistan.

The CBI managed to arrest Mansoor but Farooq, who stayed in Dubai, remained at large. Mansoor was later acquitted by the Tada court on grounds that the prosecution had failed to establish his role in the bomb blasts.

In their confessional statements, other bomb blast suspects described the role played by Mansoor and Farooq, but the fact that they named the former only as Mansoor, without identifying him by his full name, worked in his favour and he received the benefit of doubt.