The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested a suspected Bangladeshi operative of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) terror group in Bengal, officials announced on Wednesday.
The NIA conducted a search operation on Tuesday in Bengal’s South 24 Parganas and recovered “electronic devices, a fake Indian voter ID card, Aadhaar cards, and other incriminating documents for illegal acquisition of Indian identity by the Bangladeshi national,” the officials said in a release.
The agency said, “The accused arrested was involved in arranging fake Indian identity documents for terrorists of the JMB, who had illegally entered India.”
So far, five people associated with the JMB have been arrested since August 6 in a case of “conspiracy of online radicalisation and recruitment” of Muslim youngsters in both India and Bangladesh.
The NIA suspects that the Bangladeshi terror outfit was involved in the Nimtita railway station blast in Murshidabad district in February, in which several people were injured including Trinamool Congress (TMC) party workers and minister Jakir Hossain.
The railway station is located in a district that shares a border with Bangladesh.
Over the past few years, the NIA and the Special Task Force (STF) of the state police have nabbed several JMB terrorists from Murshidabad district.
Since the start of 2021, 20 JMB associates and militants have been arrested by the NIA. HT reported in 2019 that two senior NIA officials had said the JMB has emerged as a potential threat in India.
In February, the NIA court sentenced Kausar, a Bangladeshi national and an operative of the JMB, to 29 years in jail for his role in the 2014 bombing of a rented house in Bengal’s East Burdwan district.