Kolkata, May 10 The West Bengal Police recovered several coded and encrypted messages from the mobile phones of Aazmal Hossain and Saheb Ali Khan, the two Indian associates of Bangladesh-based Islamic fundamentalist group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) who were arrested on Friday from Nalhati in Birbhum district, which hint at their links with other fundamentalist groups.
Sources said that some of these coded messages had references of groups like Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HUT), and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), all being identified as fundamentalist groups with the last two entities being very active in the recent past to open sleeper cells in the Indo-Bangladesh bordering and minority dominated districts in West Bengal like Murshidabad and Malda.
While Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind has its roots in Jammu and Kashmir the main bases of the other two are in Bangladesh, with a focus on spreading their network in bordering districts of West Bengal.
State police sources said that the investigating officials are currently trying to crack all the coded messages on their mobile phones to get a clearer picture of their exact links with different fundamentalist groups.
At the same time, marathon interrogations of Hossain and Khan are on, with both being remanded to 14 days of police custody by a district court in Birbhum district on Friday.
At the same time, the investigating officials have tracked details of some suspicious online transactions.
Already, in the face of interrogation, said sources, Hossain admitted of his failed attempts to go to Bangladesh in the recent past amid increased border surveillance by different central and state security-cum-Intelligence agencies amid the ongoing political crisis in Bangladesh.
Recently, the Union Home Ministry received information from Intelligence agencies about the alleged role of illegal Bangladeshi intruders behind the violence and vandalism at the minority-dominated Murshidabad district over violent protests against the newly-promulgated Waqf (Amendment) Act.
The names of JMB, HUT and ABT surfaced in that Intelligence input.
However, considering the geographical locations of the pockets where the tension and violence had been maximum this time, especially Samserganj, the possibility of ABT playing some role in the latest violence sounded more logical.
On the eastern side of the International Borders at Samserganj and Dhulian, is the Bangladeshi district of Chapai-Nawabganj, which is considered the stronghold of ABT.
Sources added that because of this geographical proximity, the chances of ABT's involvement in the latest developments at Murshidabad are most likely.
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