Two suspected JMB members arrested from Bengal's Birbhum

Kolkata, May 10 (IANS) The West Bengal Police have said that two suspected members from Bangladesh-based fundamentalist group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) have been arrested from Nalhati in Birbhum district.

The two persons arrested in this connection on Friday have been identified as Aazmal Hossain (28) and Saheb Ali Khan (27).

While Hossain is a resident of Nalhati and Saheb Ali Khan is a resident of Murarai, both in Birbhum district.

District police sources said that they were mainly operating from Nalhati with the intention and brainwashing Muslim youths from the district to join the different sleeper cells of JMB.

"They did that by silently and selectively distributing jihadi messages among the youths and they used to spread these messages through encrypted messages on social media."

Both the accused were presented at a district court in Birbhum on Friday and were remanded to 14 days of police custody.

District police sources said that initial investigation revealed that these arrested youths also had plans to create communal tensions in different pockets of the state using these brainwashed youths.

Different digital and paper documents have been seized from their possession which had proved their involvement behind the anti-national activities as well as their association with JMB.

The policemen have also seized Islamic literature published in Bangladesh from the possession of the accused duo.

However, their arrests have made their neighbours quite surprised since both were known in the locality as extremely well-mannered and not involved in any kind of local troubles.

Recently, after the Union Home Ministry received information from intelligence agencies about the alleged role of illegal Bangladeshi intruders behind the violence and vandalism at minority-dominated Murshidabad district over violent protests against the newly-promulgated Waqf (Amendment) Act.

The names of three Bangladesh-based fundamentalist groups are possible since all these groups had been quite active for some time in this district that shares international borders with Bangladesh.

These three groups are JMB, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HUT), and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT).

--IANS

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