'Terrorist arrested in Burdwan has links to Islamic State'

The suspected terrorist arrested from Viswabharati fast passenger train at Burdwan station has links to terror groups Islamic State and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, a top Crime Investigation Department officer said on Tuesday.

A resident of Labhpur in West Bengal's Birbhum district, Mosiruddin alias Mosi alias Majnu, has admitted to having links with top Islamic State leaders and the JMB through e-mails, social networking sites and mobile, the officer said.

During a joint interrogation by the Crime Investigation Department, the National Investigation Agency and the Intelligence Bureau, Mosiruddin had admitted to his connection to Amjad Sheikh, an alleged key member of the JMB arrested in 2014 in connection with the Khagragarh twin blast case, sources in the CID said.

A sharp weapon and an airgun were seized from Mosiruddin after he was arrested on Monday by Burdwan railway police and the state police from Viswabharati fast passenger train following specific inputs from the NIA.

CID sources said the NIA sleuths had been keeping an eye on Mosiruddin for quite some time.

"He was residing at Tamil Nadu's Trippur district for quite some time now. There was information that he was returning to Kolkata on Monday and we started keeping a tab of his movements in the city," a CID sleuth said.

He got down at Howrah station and went to Esplanade where he bought a sharp weapon and came back to Howrah station and boarded the train to return to Labhpur, the officer said.

Sleuths were going through Mosiruddin's mobile phone call list, his e-mails and the documents seized from him to confirm his involvement with the IS and the JMB.

"We are also looking into whether he has any link to the terrorist attack in Dhaka's Holey Artisan Bakery restaurant," the officer said.

Burdwan district entered the terror map in October, 2014 when two suspected JMB terrorists were killed while making improvised explosive devices at a rented house in Khagragarh locality of Burdwan.

The NIA arrested a mechanical engineering student on suspicion of being a terrorist from Durgapur in March, this year. Another person, suspected to be a Bangladeshi militant, was also arrested from Asansol later.