Kolkata: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested the mastermind of the Khagragarh blast Jamat-Ul-Mujahideen (Bangladesh) activist Kausar alias Bomaru Mijan, from Bengaluru on Tuesday.
The arrest of Kausar came as a major breakthrough in connection with the Khagragarh blast case that took place on October 2 in 2014.
His arrest came on the heels of the arrest of one of his close aides, Manirul Seikh alias Munir, from Karnataka. The local police arrested him and handed him over to the NIA. During interrogation, the NIA officers had come to know about Kausar and his whereabouts. Subsequently, raids were conducted at Bengaluru and Kausar was arrested.
Both Kausar and Munir were also involved in the Bodh Gaya blast case. The NIA officers will be taking them to Bodh Gaya for further probe and to reconstruct a plot of the incident.
It may be recalled that Kausar was one of the most wanted JMB activists and he was in Bengal during the Khagragarh blast incident. The NIA had also announced a prize money of Rs 10 lakh for anyone giving information regarding Kausar, who had tried to influence many youths into joining JMB.
Kausar had fled from Bengal soon after the Khagragarh incident to the southern part of the country. He had no scope to flee to Bangladesh as the police there had also initiated search for JMB activists, following the incident at Khagragarh.
Kausar had been changing his shelter to avoid getting arrested. Munir used to stay at Ramnagar in Karnataka while Kausar took refuge in Bengaluru.
The investigating officers are now trying to know their future plans. They are also trying to know about all the places where the duo had stayed since 2014 and who had helped them to stay in the southern parts of the country.
It may be recalled that Kausar had played a key role as a JMB activist in the terrorist group spreading tentacles in India. The investigation had earlier revealed that members of the banned organisation had a plan of using the country as a base to carry on terror activities in the neighbouring Bangladesh. But investigating agencies of both the countries have worked together and managed to check several terror activities that were planned by the outfit.
The Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police had also arrested many JMB activists. NIA had taken most of them in their custody for interrogation.