National Investigation Agency today arrested a youth on the charges of anti-national activities, from Subhash Chandra Bose’s ancestral village.
Abdul Mannan, a terror recruiter for neo-Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (neo-JMB), was arrested in Subhashgram in South 24 Parganas, which is 20km from Kolkata. JMB has links with ISIS, operating as its South Asia organisation, and is believed to be attempting to dethrone the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh.
The arrest comes days after India and Bangladesh went into a diplomatic tussle over the attack on Hindus and their places of worship during the Durga Puja festival in Bangladesh.
Mannan, a religious teacher, is a resident of Barishal district in Bangladesh and sneaked into India last year before COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. His task was to radicalise local boys and recruit them for the organisation. NIA sleuths have recovered incriminating evidence. JMB is yet to make any statement on the arrest of its operative.
Mannan will be in police custody for five days and will be taken to Delhi.
In July, four JMB operatives were arrested in Kolkata. After Bengaluru and Hyderabad, the JMB seems to have found a foothold in Kolkata.
The terror module came to attention after the 2014 Burdwan blast, following which the NIA swung into action. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval visited West Bengal several times to assess the JMB’s expansion in the state.
