The Centre on Monday expressed strong concern over the terror activities in Bengal telling Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that the Burdwan blast was an “issue of terror” and “serious”.
The Centre’s message was conveyed to the Chief Minister by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, who met Mamata along with NSG chief JN Chowdhury, IB chief Asif Ibrahim and Special Secretary Home Prakash Mishra.
“We discussed the issue with the Chief Minister. She assured us that her Government would extend all cooperation and work together with the Centre to fight terrorism,” Mishra told reporters after the hour-long meeting with Mamata at the State Secretariat. The Central team told the Chief Minister that Burdwan blast was an “issue of terror”, an assertion to counter her objections to the NIA probe into the matter.
The meeting took place after the central team visited the Khagragarh blast site in Burdwan, where two Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, Bangladesh (JMB) militants were killed on October 2 while they were making IEDs that went off accidentally, exposing the large terror network that has spread across five to six border districts of the State.
Doval and his team visited the room where the bomb exploded killing the two terrorists. They also went to the room which had served as a laboratory for the suspected terrorists and up to the roof of the house. The Central team’s visit was the second in the past four days after the NIA DG too personally took stock of the situation.
Visits by so many security chiefs to a single place in Bengal, is unprecedented and indicated the Centre’s seriousness regarding tackling of terror moles operating in Bengal. Mishra made it clear: “The case will be taken to its logical end.”
Doval, who reportedly met Mamata as the special emissary of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, did not interact with the media. The team also held discussions with Chief Secretary Sanjay Mitra, Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee, Kolkata Police Commissioner Surajit Karpurakayastha and DGP GMP Reddy.
The State police had allegedly probed the blast lackadaisically and tried to dub the IED blast as a “crude bomb blast” and a “gas cylinder blast”. It also mysteriously overlooked 45 IEDs hidden in conspicuous places, leaving it to the NIA to find them. When asked to comment on whether the Central team was satisfied with the way the State police had conducted the probe, Mishra said: “We are also here for improving the capacity of the West Bengal Police and security agencies to handle this kind of a situation.”
Incidentally, the JMB-link accused had been operating from the house that they had taken on rent from a local Trinamool Congress leader. The NIA team probing the case had earlier accused the State administration of non-cooperation. It even moved court seeking medical reports of Abdul Hakim, the other accused who was injured in the blast and was undergoing treatment at the Government-run SSKM Hospital in Kolkata.
The team alleged that the Hospital Superintendent was not cooperating with it. The court has ordered the hospital to file the report by October 31 to enable the NIA to interrogate him. Mamata, also happens to handle the Health portfolio.