West Bengal born girl, accused of recruiting for JMB arrested in Bangladesh

New Delhi, July 18: A girl of Indian origin has been arrested in Dhaka, Bangladesh for her alleged links with Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, Bangladesh (JMB). She is accused of recruiting for the JMB.

The 25-year-old Ayesha Jannat Mohona hails from Hooghly in West Bengal and was arrested by the Bangladesh Police's Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime Branch on Friday from Sadarghat in Dhaka.

During a media briefing, Sk Imran Hossain, Assistant Commissioner, CTC said she has been reminded in four days police custody by a court. Ayesha, born a Hindu as Pragya Debnath converted to Islam in 2009. Following this, she was actively involved in religious lessons online.

It was during this period that she got in touch with the women's wing chiefs, Asma Khatoon. She was actively involved with the women's wing of the JMB, the Bangladesh police also said. She was tasked with recruiting young girls for the women's wing and was asked to focus on India. The CTTC is in the process of finding out about her latest recruitments.

It was in the year 2016 that she first left for Bangladesh from West Bengal. The CTTC has learnt that she had made several to and fro trips since then. In Bangladesh, she even procured a fake birth certificate and a national identity card of Bangladesh.

In 2019 after moving permanently to Bangladesh, she started working in a madrasa. She has been accused of radicalising the girls at the madrassa.

She quit the madrasa and started recruiting online following Khatoon's arrest. She also married a Bangladeshi national based out of Oman.

The JMB has a huge presence in West Bengal. The role of the outfit came to light in the infamous Burdhwan incident of 2014. It was found that the modules in Burdhwan had set up several cottage industries and were producing bombs.

Over the years several from Bangladesh part of the JMB have been arrested in Bengal.

Intelligence Bureau officials tell OneIndia that Bengal has the most modules of the JMB.

Recently, the NIA too carried out scores of arrests of JMB members from Bengaluru and other parts of South India. Some were found to be involved in the Burdwan and Bodhgaya blasts as well.