4 ‘JMB men’ held in India

In a major breakthrough, India's elite anti-terror probe body National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested four suspected operatives of banned militant outfit Jama'atul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB), including a top leader, in India.

The arrestees were identified as a top JMB leader and Bangladeshi national Mohammed Jahidul Islam, alias Boma Mizan, 38, two other Bangladeshi nationals Kausar alias Muneer Miyan alias Sujan Sheikh and Mustafizur Rehman, 37, and an Indian Abdul Karim alias Chhota, 19, our New Delhi correspondent reports quoting a statement from NIA.  

Boma Mizan is wanted in several terror cases in Bangladesh and India and the other three have suspected  connections with the October 2, 2014 Burdwan blast case and the explosion in Buddhist pilgrimage centre Bodh Gaya in eastern state of Bihar on January 19 this year.

While Boma Mizan was held in Ramnagaram district of Karnataka today, Kausar and Mustafizur Rehman were apprehended in another southern Indian state of Kerala on Monday.   

Kausar was stated to be a senior leader of JMB in a charge sheet filed by NIA in the 2014 case relating to a bomb explosion that had ripped through a house in Khagragarh locality of Burdwan killing two people.

Abdul Karim and Mustafizur Rehman had been hiding in a camp of Bangla-speaking labourers in Malapuram district of Kerala subsequent to their alleged planting of explosives in Bodh Gaya.

"Incriminating" materials, including circuit design of improvised explosive devices (IED), have been recovered from Karim and Rehman, the NIA said.

Boma Mizan's house was also searched and some electronic devices and traces of explosives were recovered, it said.

He is the " mastermind" of the blast in the Buddhist pilgrimage centre Bodh Gaya in eastern Indian state of Bihar which took place on January 19 this year, the Indian security agency said.

It was under Boma Mizan's directions that another JMB suspect and Bangladeshi national Mustafizur Rehman, who is his close associate, had arranged and assembled all the explosives for the Bodh Gaya incident.

Boma Mizan was produced before the special court for NIA cases in Bengaluru which granted five days transit remand and he will be produced before the Special NIA court in Patna, capital city of Bihar, by the NIA.