Odisha Police intelligence sleuths are in contact with the Kolkata police's Special Task Force (STF) following the arrest of three suspected Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) terrorists from Kolkata on Sunday.
As per reports, the nabbed terrorists are suspected to have revealed links with Odisha and a few more JMB members are suspected to have taken shelter in the State.Sources said at least 15 operatives of the banned terror outfit have sneaked into West Bengal from Bangladesh and 10 of them moved to various parts of India including Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha and Bihar. This was ascertained during the interrogation of the nabbed trio. The rest five stayed back in West Bengal of whom three were arrested from south Kolkata's Haridevpur area and hunt is on to nab the other two, who are on the run.
An Odisha police official said that though exact links of the arrested JMB operatives with the sleeper cell suspects are yet to be ascertained, appropriate action would be taken if any such connection is established.
The three suspected JMB operatives identified as Naziur Rahman Pavel alias Joseph (30), Rabiul Islam (22) and Mikail Khan alias Sheikh Sabbir (30), were living in a rented house in south Kolkata, and were collecting funds for the organisation. They used to sell fruits and worked as masons for a living, the Kolkata STF said. Police have recovered mobile phones, some firearms, Indian identity cards, Bangladeshi passports, documents related to JMB and jehadi literature from their possession. A diary was also seized which had information about other JMB leaders in Bangladesh, said reports.
The JMB, which is behind the terror attack at a popular cafe in Dhaka in 2016 in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, lost their lives, is trying to spread its tentacles in India, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had warned in 2019.