West Bengal STF arrests JeM operative for tracking Adhikari
The Special Task Force of Bengal Police has arrested Hamim Mondal, an operative of Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad. Digital devices recovered from him indicated his surveillance activities on several political functionaries, including travel movements of State Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, officials said, adding he was picked up from the Renaissance township of Burdwan, a city 110 km north of Kolkata.
Mondal was picked up in a dramatic operation in the small hours of Friday, sources said.
He had recently shifted to his rented apartment at Burdwan after the State Government conducted an eviction drive in the Pil Khana area of Howrah where he originally lived, police said, adding he was a close confidant of Sajjad Butt, one of the alleged persons involved in the 2019 Pulwama attack when a Jaish suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a CRPF convoy in Kashmir, killing 40 personnel.
Sajjad and Mondal might have come into contact via social media a few years ago, officials suspected, adding he was also in touch with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence.
Referring to the arrest, the Chief Minister said: “It is an extremely sensitive issue… it is not for me to comment on the issue as it involves a larger national and even international angle… the STF will give a briefing later on… I can only say that some political persons, including Umesh Rai (a Bengal minister) and me.”
Mondal, who was living with his parents and sisters at Burdwan, was on Friday remanded to 14 days’ police custody by the designated judge, police said, adding they were analysing the various other data that had been recovered from him.
The police sources said electronic devices, including a mobile phone seized from Mondal, were being examined to trace his communications, movements and alleged plans. “The police have to find out whether he was a recruiter and if so how many persons had he recruited and whether they have set up bases in the State or other places of the country… the full extent of his network has to be found out,” a senior official said.
Incidentally, parts of Burdwan East had figured earlier on account of terror activities when in 2014 an accidental blast inside a house at Khagragarh exposed the presence of banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operatives in the area.
In fact, the Union Home Minister had conducted a high-level meeting with four Chief Ministers of eastern India in Kolkata in 2022 to discuss the issue of rising terror threats.
