NIA, Bangladesh police share info

A team of India's National Intelligence Agency (NIA) met top police officials in Dhaka yesterday and shared information on absconding JMB men charge-sheeted in the sensational Burdwan blast case.

“We also shared evidence of the three fugitive Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh operatives' involvement in the blast,” said one of the Bangladeshi police officials after the meeting at the police headquarters. He wished anonymity as he was not allowed to talk to the media about the outcome of the meeting.

Earlier, India's home and external affairs ministries had made formal requests to Bangladesh for handing over the information and evidence to them.

The official at the police headquarters said the evidence was important for the NIA to prove the charges, pressed against the accused, in the court which would conduct the Burdwan blast trial “soon”.

The three-member NIA team, led by Inspector General Sanjib Kumar Sinha, may meet the Rapid Action Battalion high-ups today, said a high official of the Rab, the elite force that leads the counter-terrorism operations in the country.

On Saturday, the NIA officials came to Dhaka on a four-day visit.

Joint Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Monirul Islam on Monday said the NIA team was visiting Bangladesh to share information on the investigation into the Burdwan blast case and on the accused JMB men still at large.

On March 30, the NIA submitted a chargesheet against 21 people, including four alleged Bangladeshis, in the case.

The blast was carried out at a house at Khagragarh in India's Burdwan on October 2 last year. Two people were killed in the incident.

The dead were Sakil Gazi, a Bangladeshi who is believed o be the mastermind of a bomb-making module of the JMB, and his associate Karim Sheikh, according to the chargesheet.

The Bangladeshis named as accused in the chargesheet are Sheikh Rahamatullah alias Sajid alias Burhan Sekh, 19; Talha Sheikh alias Talha Sekh, 20; Kausar, 21, and Nasirullah alias Nasrulla alias Sahadat Seikh alias Sohail alias Hathkata.

Of them, only Rahamatullah was arrested by the NIA. The three others are absconding.