Buddhist shrine blast in India: JMB militant arrested in Murshidabad

West Bengal Police arrested a top operative of terror group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), wanted in cases filed with Bangladeshi police stations and also allegedly involved in a blast at a key Buddhist shrine in India in 2018, from a hideout in Murshidabad district early yesterday, a senior police officer said.

In a joint operation, Special Task Force (STF) of the Kolkata Police along with Murshidabad district police and local officers in Suti town apprehended Abdul Karim alias Bodo Karim, an Indian national, the officer said.

An STF officer said Karim had provided shelter to JMB leaders from Bangladesh who were directly involved in the Bodh Gaya blast, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

In 2018, the STF unit had seized a huge quantity of explosives and ''jihadi'' material from his house in Murshidabad. But Karim could not be traced back then.

Police sources said Karim has not been named by India's elite counter-terror probe body National Investigative Agency in its charge-sheet in the Bodh Gaya blast case but he had been under the scanner for a while.

"He is one of the top JMB operatives in India. We had been looking for him for quite some time," the STF officer added.

After his arrest, two more top JMB terrorists, wanted in the case, remain fugitive, he said

Talking about Karim, the senior officer said he was the main leader of the Dhuliyan (Murshidabad) module and used to provide logistic supports, shelter to top JMB leaders like Saleuddin. His name was mentioned as the main operative also by JMB terrorists in Bangladesh during their interrogation.

Karim was later in the day produced before a city court which remanded him to police custody till June 12.

On January 19, 2018, a low-intensity bomb had exploded hours after Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama had finished a sermon at the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

The NIA has so far arrested five people in connection with the case.