Kolkata, Sep 29 (IANS) The National Investigation Agency (NIA) was conducting raids and search operations at five locations in different corners of West Bengal on Tuesday in connection with an ongoing investigation to crack the sleeper cells of an underground Bangladeshi fundamentalist-cum-militant outfit, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), in the state.
Sources aware of the development said Tuesday’s raid and search operations were in relation to a case registered in neighbouring Assam, and the NIA’s actions at those five locations in West Bengal were based on specific information secured by the central agency sleuths in the matter.
The locations where Tuesday’s raid and search operations were conducted included Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district, Harirampur in South Dinajpur district and a couple of pockets in East Burdwan district.
Last week, the NIA sleuths arrested a youth in Assam on suspicion of being a militant. The investigators found that the arrested youth was an active member of JMB. During interrogation, he admitted that a module of that Bangladesh-based militant organisation was quite active in West Bengal.
His interrogation also revealed that JMB was working to create sleeper cells in West Bengal, where several youths from a particular community were being brainwashed to join that banned Bangladesh-based outfit.
The documents seized by the NIA sleuths from the youth arrested in Assam revealed further details about the active JMB module. Armed with that information, the NIA sleuths were conducting raids and search operations in different locations in West Bengal since morning.
To recall, in July this year, the sleuths of the Special Task Force (STF) of West Bengal Police arrested a youth, Hamid Mondal, having links with both terrorist groups, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) as well as with Shahzad Bhatti Network (SBN), a Pakistan-based terrorist-criminal group.
He had been residing in West Bengal with fake Indian identity documents for quite some time. His latest assignment was collecting details of the movements of the West Bengal Chief Minister, Suvendu Adhikari.
Later, based on the information provided by him during interrogation, the STF sleuths arrested some of his associates, which included a young woman, Arpita Sarkar, who was mainly used for honey-trapping influential people.
–IANS
src/dpb