NIA begins tracking Bengal youths brainwashed by arrested JMB associates

The NIA arrested four suspected JMB associates in West Bengal, uncovering documents identifying youths allegedly targeted for radicalisation. Investigators said the outfit used Telegram and encrypted chats to recruit and train members, while raising funds and planning terrorist activities through sleeper cells

Kolkata: The sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) have started tracking the youths in West Bengal who have been brainwashed by the underground Bangladesh-based fundamentalist-cum-militant outfit, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), to join the outfit.

On Tuesday, the NIA sleuths arrested four persons from two districts in West Bengal, East Burdwan and South 24 Parganas. Sources aware of the developments said that from their possession, the investigating sleuths have secured crucial documents indicating the names of youths from different districts in the state who were in constant touch with the four arrested persons.

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Sources added, these JMB associates followed a two-step method to identify and contact youths from a particular community in West Bengal who were gullible enough to be brainwashed to join or work for the terror outfit.

The first step was spreading the JMB message through a Telegram Channel christened “Purba Akash”. Thereafter, youths responding to such messages somewhat positively were approached by these four arrested JMB associates individually or in small groups and subsequently brainwashed to join the fundamentalist outfit.

It is learnt that once the initial process of systematic brainwashing was over, these JMB associates used to communicate with the shortlisted youths through encrypted chats on how to carry out terrorist activities like network and sabotage in different parts of the country.

The arrested people started raising funds through their own crowdfunding mechanism. The NIA sleuths also recovered multiple mobile phones, SIM cards and jihadi literature from the four arrested persons.

On Tuesday, the NIA sleuths first arrested Piar Mohammad Sheikh, an Imam attached to a mosque in Palishgram village under Mangalkot Police Station in East Burdwan district of West Bengal, as a suspect of having terror links.

Later in the day, three other persons, namely Jumman Sheikh, Shahrul Purrkait and Abdul Rafiq, were arrested from the South 24 Parganas district. The NIA sleuths arrested Jumman Sheikh from Mithapukur, Shahrul Purrkait from Balarampur and Abdul Rafiq from Narendrapur in South 24 Parganas district.

However, another JMB associate in West Bengal, Mujibur Rahman, a resident of Banshihari-Kushkari village in South Dinajpur, has been on the run. Although the NIA sleuths conducted raid and search operations at his residence at Banshihari-Kushkari on Tuesday, he was not available.

The arrests followed coordinated raids by different teams of the NIA, which launched simultaneous raids and search operations at various locations in West Bengal on Tuesday morning in connection with its ongoing investigation to bust the JMB’s sleeper cells in the state.