Indian intelligence agencies have arrested one of the leaders of a domestic terror group blamed for a series of bombings in the nation's cities, a top government official said Thursday.
Yasin Bhatkal, arrested Wednesday night on India's eastern border with Nepal, is being questioned by state police, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters. He did not give other details.
Ashok Karnik, a security expert, said Bhatkal's arrest was a significant development as he could expose the terrorist network in the country.
The government outlawed the Indian Mujahideen in 2010 after it was suspected of involvement in an attack on a café popular with foreigners in the western Indian city of Pune that left 15 people dead.
Indian authorities also have blamed the group for a bombing at a Bangalore cricket stadium that wounded five people in 2010, a shooting and bombing attack outside a famous New Delhi mosque that injured two foreigners in 2010, and a dual bomb attack that killed 16 people outside a movie theatre and a bus station in the southern city of Hyderabad in 2013.
Indian intelligence officials say the group arose out of Muslim Indian's anger at Hindu extremists' 1992 destruction of the 16th century Babri Mosque and the 2002 spasm of communal violence in the western state of Gujarat that killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.
Indian police believed they had eliminated the group after a series of raids in 2008, but subsequent attacks made it clear the Indian Mujahedeen had re-emerged.
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