Vadodara: The government railway police (GRP) on Wednesday arrested a man convicted in the 2002 Sabarmati Express carnage.
Irfan Siraj Pada was arrested for in connection with purse thefts in a train on Vadodara railway station.
Irfan was serving life imprisonment in the train carnage case, but had jumped parole last year and was on the run since then.
Police said that his name surfaced during interrogation of the other two theft accused. “A complaint of purse thefts in Ajmer-Bandra Express was registered at Vadodara railway police station in July this year. We nabbed two persons, Ishaq and Ashfaq, later. During questioning, they admitted that Irfan too had accompanied them during the thefts,” said K M Chaudhary, GRP police inspector, Vadodara.
“Irfan was lodged in Vadodara Central Jail in a murder case. We brought him out on a transfer warrant and interrogated him for a day. He was sent back to the jail on Wednesday evening,” Chaudhary added.
While on the run, he took the contract for killing Hiren Patel, vice-president of Jhalod municipality in Dahod earlier this year. Patel was hit by a SUV when he was out for a walk near his home in September. Investigations revealed that he was deliberately hit by the vehicle and murdered. Irfan was later arrested along with three others.
GRP officials said that when he was on the run, Irfan used to commit such thefts to earn some quick money.