Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is an organisation which does not believe in democracy. They want to replace it with Islamic Shariat and they are not hesitant about that. In fact, Bangladesh has already experienced their presence in 63 districts out of a total of 64 districts of the country. On August 17, 2005 in 300 places of those 63 districts there were 500 ‘low intensity blasts’. Two persons were killed and more than one hundred people were injured in these blasts. While declaring that their objective is to establish Shariat in place of democracy, it seems that they will not spare the lives of judges and are going to demolish all courts of law.
Before this incident took place, the then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Government of Khaleda Zia had claimed that there was no such party like JMB in their country. But soon after the serial blasts took place, Khaleda Zia banned the JMB.
Now it has come to light that the said organisation JMB had established their branch in West Bengal clandestinely in 1999. Later, it has been revealed that the JMB was behind the above mentioned serial blast in Bangladesh and the three members of JMB, West Bengal were sent to Bangladesh to help their colleagues there. When National Investigation Agency (NIA) investigated into the Khagragarh (West Bengal) blast case, their identity became public. Although the name of one of the accused was immediately available after he was arrested from Pakur, in Jharkhand, the other two are still at large. Although their names were not immediately available but the NIA sleuths could gather whereabouts of those two—one is a resident of Bardhaman and the other is of Murshidabad. Sleuths are not yet sure whether any one of them was involved in Khagragarh.
According to the first report the JMB, West Bengal had been assigned to work as ‘back office support’ for all terrorist actions that they would initiate in Bangladesh and other parts of India. During the investigation, the NIA came to know that the JMB, West Bengal has already sent massive amount of arms and ammunition to JMB, Bangladesh and the NIA believes that the serial blasts of 2005 in Bangladesh were perpetrated with the help of JMB, West Bengal.
Informers have further reported that two heavy weights of JMB Mamood and Hatkata Nasirullah came to West Bengal and settled in Jangipur, Murshidabad. Nasirullah was the main accused of Khagragarh incident and he is still at large.
In fact, JMB had recruited Ibrahim alias Laltu of Nabagram in 2002 and sent him to JMB headquarters at Dhaka for giving training in terror action. Sleuths further said that after Ibrahim came back to Nabagram, on his part he recruited two, one from Lalgola and the other from Bardhaman. Then, of course, these two persons have been staying at Bangladesh continuously for one and half years.
But who is this person whom the JMB recruited from Nabagram and had given him prolonged training in terror actions. Off and on this person is being utilised for taking actions not only in different parts of India, but also in Bangladesh. The NIA is reluctant to disclose his name as the said person had denied his connection with the JMB and said that he has severed his relationship with the organisation several years back. Investigators knew through their sources that this person had misappropriated one and half lakh of rupees and within four years of this incident he was removed from the organisation. The leadership of the JMB has recruited Maulana Yousuf Sheikh in his place. Although the Government has declared a reward of Rs.10 lakh each for the two culprits, they have not been arrested yet.
Asim Kumar Mitra (The writer is Kolkata based journalist)
