The STF probing the JeM-linked terror plots against CM Suvendu Adhikari and the CJP's Jantar Mantar protest discovered a factory used by Hamim Mondal at Pilkhana.

The STF probing the JeM-linked terror plots against CM Suvendu Adhikari and the CJP's Jantar Mantar protest discovered a factory used by Hamim Mondal at Pilkhana.

The STF probing the JeM-linked terror plots against CM Suvendu Adhikari and the CJP's Jantar Mantar protest discovered a factory used by Hamim Mondal at Pilkhana.

After Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) operative Hamim Mondal admitted to targeting West Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari, crucial details have emerged about the terror plot. His handlers had also planned to target the recent CJP protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar.

The Special Task Force (STF) of the Bengal police probing the case has now found the secret hideout allegedly used by Mondal and a few others, tracing it to a two-storey building at 7 Alam Mistry Lane in Howrah's Pilkhana area.

Mohammad Ali, the owner of the Pilkana building, claimed that Hamim's father had rented both of its floors two years ago at a rate of ₹11,000. 

Locals had then spotted him bringing machinery inside a couple of times, which had made them suspicious at the time.

However, Hamim told them that it was a garments unit, and that his job was to barcode-tag ready-made clothes. As a result, he claimed that the first floor had a printing machine for the tags, while the second was an office with computers, as per local media reports.

Ali added that the factory has remained closed since the BJP won the 2026 Assembly elections this year—the time that the STF said that Mondal had moved to his rented flat at Renaissance Complex in Burdwan town, from where he was arrested on the night of July 30.

The police had also revealed that the link between Mondal, a native of Kusumgram in the Purba Burdwan district, and the JeM module run by Shahzad Bhatti and associate Azmal Gujjar, was being probed.

Mondal and his alleged girlfriend, Arpita Sarkar, are also said to be close to Sajjad Bhat, one of the masterminds of the February 2019 Pulwama attack that led to the deaths of 40 Indian military personnel.

The STF has also revealed that apart from the plots to attack CM Suvendu Adhikari and disrupt the CJP's recent Jantar Mantar protests, Mondal's ISI-linked handlers also planned to honey-trap the son of the son of a minister of state in West Bengal to abduct him and extort money from the family, as per a PTI report.

The minister's complaint about receiving extortion calls from a "Pakistani agency" who had also threatened to kidnap his son, and attack a BJP office in Kolkata.

Mondal was produced before the Burdwan court on July 31 by the six-member STF team, after which he was remanded to 14 days of police custody.

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