New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday successfully extradited from Rwanda alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Salman Khan, wanted for radicalising youth and distributing explosives, marking another significant chapter in international cooperation on cross-border crime.
Salman, 30, who was charged in the “Bengaluru prison case”, was arrested in Kigali, Rwanda on 9 September, over a month after Interpol issued a Red Notice on India’s request.
After the Rwanda Investigation Bureau confirmed Salman’s presence in the country, New Delhi submitted an official extradition request on 29 October.
The fact that there was no extradition treaty between the two countries did not delay Salman’s deportation as the governments quickly signed a “reciprocal agreement” over just a few weeks.
Under this arrangement, a source said, criminals found in each other’s country would be sent back upon request.
The source added: “This agreement was reached in the last few weeks to ensure that the countries are not constrained to take action in absence of such a treaty. This will help both India and Rwanda to work in close coordination and no country becomes a safe haven for fugitives.”
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Bengaluru prison conspiracy case
In 2023, the Bengaluru Police registered a case in connection with “radicalisation” inside prisons, following input from central intelligence agencies that indicated jails were becoming a fertile recruitment ground for terror groups.
The inputs suggested that hardened terrorists were brainwashing youth inside, encouraging them to join terror ranks and “fight for their religion”.
Salman, it was alleged, was influenced during his stint in the Bengaluru prison from 2018 to 2022 in a POCSO case.
Based on the intelligence inputs, the Bengaluru Central Crime Branch arrested five people for planning a terror attack. The five men had a history of crime and were also in possession of seven country-made pistols and 45 live bullets.
According to an NIA officer, Salman fled the country after the terror module was busted with these arrests, and was then declared a fugitive. Subsequently, the NIA took over the case and registered a fresh FIR on 25 October, 2023.
Among the other accused in the case is T. Naseer, once an active member in the banned terror organisation Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), who was in Bengaluru Central Prison since 2013, convicted in the serial blasts in the city five years ago.
A source said Naseer radicalised youth to carry out terror activities. “He even managed to get prisoners shifted from barracks to assess who could join him. This is how he managed to recruit people,” he added.
An NIA statement Thursday said investigations revealed that Salman, previously imprisoned in a POCSO case from 2018 to 2022, “had facilitated the collection and distribution of explosives for other terror accused after being radicalized and recruited during his incarceration by T. Naseer, a life convict in a terror case”.
It added Naseer had orchestrated the radicalisation and subsequent criminal activities, including plans to “facilitate his own escape enroute to the court from the prison and a conspiracy to further the operations of the proscribed terrorist organisation LeT”.
NIA & CBI’s score so far
Salman is the 17th terror accused who has been extradited in an NIA case since 2020, a government source said, adding the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has coordinated the return of 100 accused in the last four years with Interpol.
Last month, the NIA extradited terrorist Baljeet Singh from the UAE in a Khalistan Tiger Force terror conspiracy. It got Khalistani terrorist Tarsem Singh Sandhu from the UAE in August.
Vikramjit Singh Brar, Manpreet Singh, Amritpal Singh, Amrik Singh, Mandeep Singh, Ratheesh, were other terrorists deported from the UAE and the Philippines in 2023 in various NIA cases.
Khalistani terrorist Bikramjit Singh was extradited from Austria in December 2022.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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