Police on Friday arrested a man who had escaped prison by digging a tunnel some 14 years ago.

According to Superintendent of Police Navaratna Paudel, who is also the chief at the district police office, the security personnel detained Iskul Miya Ansari, also known as Mohammad Iskul, from Shivaraj Municipality-7 in Kapilvastu district. Ansari is from Chiliya Thana of Sidharthanagar district in Uttar Pradesh, India.

The court had sentenced him to 6 years 5 months 9 days imprisonment and Rs450,000 fine on charges of robbery.

Along with Ansari, eight other prisoners had escaped the Kapilvastu District Jail on January 16, 2010.

They had dug a 21-foot-long tunnel from their room inside the cell and escaped through the eastern wall of the prison.

Paudel said they planned the arrest after receiving information about his hiding. Seven others who escaped by digging a tunnel had already been arrested.

“Escaping by digging a tunnel is a serious crime,” he said. “Ansari was arrested after a continuous effort for a long time.”

After digging a tunnel of two and a half feet diameter throughout the night, they managed to escape in the morning, said police.

After Paudel was transferred to Kapilvastu as district police chief, he stepped up a search operation in the past nine months and succeeded in arresting 126 fugitives.