The West Bengal police on Saturday arrested key Burdwan blast suspect Sheikh Rehmatullah alias Sajid from near Kolkata airport.
Published : 08 Nov 2014, 08:47 PM
He had Rs 1 lakh in fake notes on him.
Rehamatullah’s arrest follows that of Zia-ul Haque by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Haque is a "close associate" of fugitives Rejaul Karim and Yusuf Sheikh who are wanted in the Burdwan blast case.
Describing Sajid as the "mastermind of the Burdwan terror module", the police said he was a member of Majlis-e-Surah (central committee) of Jamaat-ul Mujaheedin Bangladesh (JMB).
“A resident of Narayanganj in Bangladesh, Sajid was heading the Burdwan module. The NIA has this information too,” Rajeev Kumar, senior West Bengal police officer, said.
He said that Sajid, who had an Rs 10 lakh bounty on his head, used to stay in Lalgola in Murshidabad district of West Bengal bordering Bangladesh.
“We have found that Sajid is a senior JMB leader,” Kumar added.
Though the police said Sajid was arrested on Saturday, a senior Home Ministry official in New Delhi said he had been caught earlier. “It was not announced for reasons related to interrogation.”
On October 2, an improvised explosive device (IED) went off in a house in Burdwan killing two suspected JMB militants. It also sparked fears of West Bengal having become a major terror hub.
A huge cache of bomb making material was seized from the blast site.
India warned Dhaka that bombs being assembled there were meant for terror strikes in Bangladesh.
The NIA later claimed to have unearthed a JMB plot to assassinate Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who has cracked down hard on militants.
Investigators hope to unearth more JMB plots by interrogating Sajid, who used to stay in Lalgola near India’s border with Bangladesh.
Last month, NIA announced cash rewards for information leading to the arrest of Sajid and 11 other Burdwan blast fugitives – four of them suspected Bangladeshis.
Meanwhile, the NIA extracted vital information from Zia-ul Haque.
“He was a key Jihadi motivator and would motivate the trainees in the Jihadi ideology,” a senior NIA official told bdnews24.com.
He added: “He used to facilitate the training module by collecting videos related to the Gujarat riots, Assam riots, killing of Rohingiyas, etc. These video clips were then shown to the trainees at Simulia and Mukhimnagar Madrasas (West Bengal).”