[6] On 2 August 2016, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in relation to the arms haul case by the special MCOCA court.
[7] Zabiuddin was born on 30 November 1980[8] in a village Hathi Khana mohalla in Georai area of Beed district in Maharashtra in western India.
[8][11] He was arrested by the Indian police in Maharashtra in 2003 for stabbing and attempting to immolate a woman, with whom his family was entrenched in a marital dispute.
Zabiuddin is believed to be one of the four LeT men who had come to send off Ajmal Kasab and nine other terrorists from Karachi a week prior they went to Mumbai.
[11] Investigators allege that Zabiuddin Ansari was present in Lashkar’s Karachi based control room during the Mumbai attack.
[16] Zabiuddin has claimed after his arrest that LeT chief Hafiz Saeed was also present in the LeT control room from where they had directed the Mumbai attack terrorist incident.
Zabiuddin additionally claimed that ISI and Pakistani army officials helped plan the Mumbai attacks.
In September 2008, these ten terrorists tried sailing to Mumbai from Karachi, but failed to complete their mission due to choppy waters.
[15] A terrorist who was arrested by Indian security agencies in connection with the 2010 Jama Masjid attack gave a tip about him being in Saudi Arabia.
[25][26][27][28] Initial attempts to get Zabiuddin into custody had failed because, although a native of Beed in Maharashtra, he used a Pakistani passport to travel to Saudi Arabia, under the alias Riyasat Ali.
[29] According to the Indian home ministry, Pakistan’s ISI pressured Saudi Arabia for months to prevent Jundal being handed over to India.
[30][31] According to Indian Government sources, his arrest came after months of diplomatic negotiations involving authorities in Riyadh, Washington DC, and New Delhi.
[37] Pakistani Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani while on a visit to India offered a joint investigation into Mumbai attacks.