Agartala, March 8 (IANS) The Indian member of the terror outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), who was arrested in Tripura earlier this week and is now under 12-day police custody, confessed that he is a close associate of the terror outfit and involved in terror activities, police said on Friday.
“JMB cadre Nazir Shaikh confessed that a few years back he was a follower of the terror group and paid Rs 500 per month as subscription to the outfit… For the past two years, he is a member of the banned group,” a top police officer told IANS.
Two senior officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), besides other central and state intelligence officials, are interrogating the 25-year-old JMB man at a police station on the outskirts of the capital city.
“The JMB terrorist confessed to have committed many crimes in different parts of India, including in West Bengal and in Bengaluru, and gave significant information about the terror outfit’s clandestine plan and ongoing works. NIA officials after taking transit remand from the court might take him outside the state as part of their investigation,” said the officer, who also questioned the detainee.
Arrested in Tripura on March 5, the JMB cadre was on Wednesday sent to 12 days’ police custody by a local court here. He would be produced in the court again on March 18.
“For the past two weeks, he had been working in a private construction firm in Arundhitinagar (on the outskirts of the capital city in western Tripura).”
Tripura Director General of Police (DGP) Akhil Kumar Shukla had earlier said that the detainee had been involved in many terror activities both in Bangladesh and India.
“Shaikh, a resident of West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, is an expert in making IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices).”
Shukla told the media that the JMB, banned both in Bangladesh and India, conducted simultaneous explosions in 63 districts in Bangladesh in 2005.
“Nazir Shaikh was involved in the Bodh Gaya blasts in January last year. He was involved in various terror activities in India. We would try to find out all possible angles about his arrival in Tripura ahead of the Lok Sabha elections,” he said.
At the time of explosion in Bodh Gaya, Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, along with several Buddhist pilgrims, was camping in the town to participate in the month-long Kalachakra puja.
The Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police and the West Bengal Police have arrested some JMB terrorists and collaborators in the state over the past few years.
Five Indian states — West Bengal (2,216 km), Tripura (856 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Mizoram (318 km) and Assam (263 km) — share 4,096-km border with Bangladesh.
Though the large portions of the frontiers have barbed wire fencing, there are unfenced, mountainous and riverine borders prone to crime and smuggling, besides trans-border illegal movements.
