In a major breakthrough, a Special Task Force (STF) of the Kolkata Police on Wednesday arrested two alleged operatives of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) from Murshidabad in West Bengal.
Those arrested have been identified as Moshibur Rahman alias Farooque (35) and Ruhul Amin alias Saifullah (26). Senior officials of the STF said that both the accused are associates of Kauser and Sajjad, and have training in the making of ‘acid bombs’. Kauser and Sajjad are the two accused in the Bodh Gaya blast case of July 2013.
“Explosives (aluminium dust, calether, sulphuric acid, etc.) has been recovered from their possession,” an STF officer said.
The arrest on Wednesday comes close on the heels of the arrest of another JMB activist Ariful Islam, who was allegedly directly involved in the 2018 Bodh Gaya blast. He was apprehended in the early hours of February 16 from central Kolkata. It was the arrest of the Ariful that led to arrest of the two other JMB operatives from Murshidabad.
According to the police, the three accused — Ariful, Moshibur and Ruhul — were preparing a plot to orchestrate the escape of Kausar when the latter would be taken from the jail to the court. Kausar was arrested in Bengaluru in August 2018.
