Cops learn about 2 more 'active members' of ABT

Kolkata: The Special Task Force (STF) of the Kolkata Police has got to know about two more "active members" of the Ansar Bangla Team (ABT) which is Al-Qaeda's network in the Indian sub-continent.

The city police have also initiated its work to fetch more information about them and also contacted the Bangladesh police in this connection.

The Kolkata Police came to know about the two more active members of ABT after interrogating Samsad Miya (26), alias Tanvir, and Riyaz (25), alias Riyazul Islam. They were arrested from Kolkata Station on Tuesday afternoon along with arms dealer Monotosh De.

According to the sources in the headquarters of the city police at Lalbazar, the two more members of ATB were in the same group in which Samsad and Riyaz belonged to.

This comes at a time when two officers of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) came to Lalbazar and interrogated Samsad and Riyaz. Sources said that the NIA officers wanted to know about them in details including their organisation that was declared banned in Bangladesh. The officers asked them about their motive of taking shelter in India and visiting different parts of the country. The NIA officers also questioned them to narrate whatever they did after joining the organisation and the places where they received training.

Sources said that the investigating officers have come to know that Samsad, who is a civil engineer, is an expert in making electronic Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). In a bid to verify his claim of his capabilities to make bombs, police officer at Lalbazar provided him with Integrated Circuits (ICs) and some other electrical equipment using which he made a powerful IED that can claim several lives just within a span of one-and-a-half hours. Moreover, Samsad had provided training on making IEDs to 26 more youth in Bangladesh.

It may be mentioned that the police have come to know that during their stay in the country for the past one-and-a-half years, they went to Delhi and Hyderabad respectively.

Besides NIA officers, Border Security Force (BSF) and Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) officers from Hyderabad also grilled Samsad and Riyaz. The BSF officers have questioned them as to how they had managed to enter the country by crossing the border.

Meanwhile, the police got more details about the arrested arms dealer Monotosh. They came to know that he was earlier arrested twice on charges of possessing illegal firearms. Once he was arrested in connection with a case related to Bhadreswar police station in Hooghly. He was again arrested from Ashoknagar police station in North 24-Parganas. He was sent behind bars in this connection and was released from correctional home after 11 months on March 10. But police did not have any clue about his involvement with members of ABT in any of the two previous cases. The police have also come to know that Monotosh's father was an employee of Ichapore Rifle Factory and are probing all aspects of it.