Pakistan’s Bhatti network targeted families of 6 Bengal ministers through JeM associate’s female aide

The West Bengal STF investigation found Pakistan-based Shahzad Bhatti Network allegedly used arrested social influencer Arpita Sarkar to honey-trap relatives of six state ministers and other influential people for intelligence gathering. Police are probing encrypted communications and Pakistani-linked social media handlers

Kolkata: Shahzad Bhatti Network (SBN), a Pakistan-based terrorist-criminal group, targeted the family members of at least six current members of the West Bengal cabinet through Arpita Sarkar, the female aide of suspected Jaish‑e‑Mohammed (JeM) associate Hamim Mondal, an investigation by the Special Task Force (STF) of the Bengal Police has revealed.

The SBN handlers used to maintain regular contact with Arpita Sarkar through encrypted messages on different social media platforms.

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Insiders from the state police said that although Sarkar was primarily a recruit of Hamim Mondal, at a later stage the handlers of the Pakistan-based terrorist-criminal group used to contact her independently and send instructions separately, bypassing Mondal, sources said.

Besides the family members of the state cabinet members, some other influential persons in the state’s administrative machinery were also targeted for honey-trapping through Sarkar, as revealed in the investigation so far. Both Mondal and Sarkar were arrested last week by the STF sleuths.

While Mondal was the first to be arrested from Burdwan town in East Burdwan district of West Bengal on Friday morning, Sarkar was arrested the same night from Sahibganj in neighbouring Jharkhand. Two mobile phones of Sarkar, also a social influencer, have been seized by the STF. The help of experts is being taken to crack the encrypted and coded message exchanged between her and the (SBN) handlers from these two mobile phones.

It is learnt that during the interrogation, Mondal had confessed to introducing Sarkar to SBN handlers. However, sources aware of the development said that after realising her potential for honey-trapping, the SBN handlers started contacting her independently and instructing her accordingly.

Sources said that initial investigation had revealed that Sarkar started establishing contacts with various influential persons in West Bengal, including some politicians, as per a plan with the sole intention of extracting classified information from them. The social media reels she circulated on different platforms were a potential medium to attract people.

After interrogating Mondal and Sarkar, the investigators tracked other social media handles, namely ‘Rana’, ‘Uzair’, ‘Abid Jat333’ and ‘Hamad’, among others. The investigation revealed that all these social media handles belonged to Pakistani handlers. The investigation revealed that these Pakistani handles also used SIM cards from Britain and Mexico.