Mohammad Aslam, the alleged kidnapper and murderer of Indian diplomat Ravindra Mhatre in Birmingham, England, in 1984 has been arrested in the US, officials said on Saturday.Aslam, 48, a Briton, was first arrested and held in Pennsylvania on immigration charges but later, by fingerprints, he was identified as the man wanted in the shooting of Indian consul in Birmingham Mhatre, said Mike Gilhooly, a spokesman for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.The kidnapping of Mhatre 20 years ago was claimed by a group called the Kashmir Liberation Front which demanded £1 million ransom and the release of several Kashmiri prisoners by the Indian government. Mhatre’s body was found on a farm three days after his kidnapping. He was shot in the head and chest.Aslam was on the verge of being deported to Britain for overstaying his visa when the US authorities discovered his fingerprints matched those of a man wanted in Britain for the kidnapping and murder of Mhatre.Gilhooly said, ‘‘While making arrangements for his removal to the US, we found that the police in UK had a warrant out for his arrest.’’ He said Aslam would remain behind bars in Pennsylvania until a decision is made about what to do with him.Two men were sentenced to prison in February 1985 for Mhatre’s murder. Aslam was held in a Pennsylvania prison since July on the immigration charges.Mhatre was ‘‘apparently kidnapped, taken to a field and shot,’’ said Assistant US Attorney Daryl F. Bloom, who is handling Aslam’s deportation case. Aslam was born in Kashmir and became a British citizen as a boy. According to court records, he moved to England in 1970 and returned to Kashmir in 1985. Aslam moved to Pennsylvania where he married a woman from Pottsville in 2001, and managed a Pottsville apartment complex.Following a July meeting in Philadelphia with immigration authorities, Aslam was arrested for overstaying his 90-day visa.Gunnar L. Armstrong, a lawyer for Aslam in the immigration case, said he was unaware of the murder charge until being contacted. — (PTI)
