NIA shares information on Burdwan blast to Bangladesh

Dhaka, Nov 18: The NIA delegation visiting Bangladesh to investigate the Burdwan blast plot has provided some names and phone numbers in connection with the incident to security agencies here.

A four-member team of officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) headed by its director general Sharad Kumar arrived here yesterday for talks and to share intelligence with security officials in Bangladesh in the aftermath of the Burdwan blast.

Officials familiar with the meeting, on condition of anonymity, said the NIA team had given 10 to 15 mobile phone numbers and a few names and wanted to know whether the Bangladeshi agencies knew about them.

"The people (named in the NIA list) might have several names. We are looking into it. After that, we will know who they are," a police spokesman told newsmen late yesterday after the NIA delegation held meetings with chiefs of security and intelligence agencies in Dhaka.

Bangladesh earlier said it would share its intelligence on banned militant Islamist outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which is allegedly responsible for the October 2 blast in Burdwan town in West Bengal.

The visit comes after NIA made major headway in the case by arresting JMB's chief commander for Burdwan module, Sajid, a Bangladeshi national, Amjad Sheikh and Zia-ul-Haque who allegedly procured explosives and motivated youth for terror groups.

Bangladesh's elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has also captured Sajid's brother Mohammad Monayem. NIA has been investigating militant networks after the blast at a house in Burdwan, which turned out to be a clandestine bomb manufacturing facility, while security officials earlier said JMB had spread its network in border areas in India.

India will also share with Bangladesh government details of its probe for preventive steps and necessary action needed to be taken by Dhaka to counter the threat posed by JMB. Two suspected militants had died in the explosion that rocked the Burdwan house and their two wives, also believed to have been trained by the JMB, were caught.

PTI