Khagragarh blast case: Mastermind jailed for 29 years

Kolkata: The mastermind of the 2014 Khagragarh blast case, Kausar alias Bomaru Mijan, was awarded 29 years of imprisonment on Wednesday by the Special NIA court here.

Earlier, around 30 accused were convicted. The Khagragarh blast took place on October 2, 2014 in Burdwan. Two members of the terror outfit, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), died while manufacturing improvised explosive devices with the intention to explode those as a part of their anti-national activity. After the Khagragarh blast, Kausar had fled to Bangladesh. He came back to India a few months later. Though police of every state in the country were alerted by the NIA, no one could trace him. He had been staying in Jharkhand, Bihar, and in a few other states in South India to escape arrest.

After a few days of the blast, NIA took over the investigation, and arrested several JMB terrorists. But, Kausar was the only one who had managed to evade arrest until 2018.

In August, 2018 he was arrested from Bengaluru by the NIA sleuths after being tipped off by the Karnataka

police.

Based on the information, the NIA team went to Bengaluru and nabbed

Kausar. Later, he was brought to Kolkata and was taken into custody by the NIA. After the NIS custody period got over,

Kausar was sent to judicial custody. During this period, several attempts were made

by other JMB members to release him.

In February, 2019 Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police had nabbed a JMB terrorist identified as Ariful Islam alias Arif alias Ataur from Babughat area.

During interrogation, cops learnt that he had been planning to release Kausar from the Alipore correctional home and had made recce of the city and the areas surrounding the correctional home. Police had found a map of the route, which police and NIA sleuths were using to take Kausar to Bankshall Court and back to Alipore correctional home.

A map of Kolkata was also found from his possession.