Bangladesh police team quizzes five JMB members arrested in 2014 Burdwan blast case

New Delhi: A Bangladesh police team quizzed five members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) terror group, arrested by NIA in 2014 Burdwan blast case, to find if any of them were involved in the conspiracy hatched to overthrow democratically elected Sheikh Hasina government in the neighbouring country.

Official sources said a team of Bangladesh police arrived here last month and questioned Moulana Yusuf, alleged to be the second-in-command of JMB's West Bengal unit and one of the main accused in the Burdwan blast, Jahidul Sheikh alias Zafar alias Jabirul, Mohammad Rafique, Shahidul alias Shamim and Abdul Kalam alias Kalim.

The Bangladesh police and NIA have been cooperating on reciprocal basis on various issues including the role of banned JMB and flow of Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) into India.

The Bangladesh team quizzed the five to know whether any of them were involved in the conspiracy hatched to overthrow a democratically elected Sheikh Hasina government there and ensure rule of 'Shariyat' (Islamic law) in that country.

The five were arrested from Assam by Special Task Force of Kolkata Police in the last week of September for allegedly conspiring to carry out blasts in the country and also striking a deal with Bodo militants. Later, NIA took their custody.

Out of the five, Yusuf and Kalam had been charge-sheeted by the NIA in abstentia while the role of other three would be defined in a fresh charge sheet, to be filed in due course of time, sources in the anti-terror probe agency said.

On October 2, 2014, a blast had occurred in a house at Khagragarh in Burdwan district of West Bengal in which a man identified as Sakil Gazi died on the spot, while another man named Sovan Mandal died in hospital. Both of them were suspected of having terror links.

NIA later discovered that Mondal was Karim Sheikh and he had misled West Bengal police about his identity.

The agency later filed a charge sheet against 30 people in March last year. Some others were added in supplementary charge sheets in which the NIA alleged that the JMB members wanted to establish Sharia rule by overthrowing the democratically-elected government in Bangladesh.

JMB's activities in India primarily included recruitment, radicalisation and training of vulnerable youths in a systematic and organised manner and, in pursuance of the conspiracy, they had established organisational bases in certain districts of West Bengal like Nadia, Burdwan, Murshidabad and Birbhum as well as in Sahebganj district of Jharkhand, the NIA said.