The National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the West Bengal Police apprehended Sheikh Sajid, head of the West Bengal chapter of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JuMB), near the Kolkata airport on Saturday afternoon.
Senior police officers said Sajid was meeting a woman named Shahnara and receiving a packet containing Rs 1 lakh in cash at a place near Jessore Road, an arterial road that leads to the airport and is one of the shortest routes to the Indo-Bangladesh border, when he was apprehended.
The investigators are still not sure whether Sajid’s plan was to go back into hiding at the safe house he has been living in for the past few days or to make his way towards Bangladesh.
Bidhan Nagar Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar said the operation to apprehend Sajid was jointly conducted by the Anti-Terrorist Cell of the Bidhan Nagar Police Commissionerate, the Special Task Force of West Bengal Police, the state CID and the NIA.
“Our officials received a tip-off and tapped into the terrorists’ hawala network. This led to a courier, who admitted during interrogation that he pass on money to Sajid.
He was arrested while being handed over the money,” said Kumar.
Deputy Commissioner (Anti-Terrorist Cell) Ranendranath Banerjee said they seized a PAN card, two voter cards and a driving licence from Sajid.
“He admitted that he also goes by the name Burhan Sheikh, who is also on the NIA’s ‘most wanted’ list. One of the voter cards, along with the PAN card and driving licence, is issued to Burhan from Masterpara at Kirnahar in Birbhum. The other voter card is in the name of Surat Ali, issued to an address at Sahebgunge in Jharkhand,” he said.
Officials pointed out that Sajid originally hails from Narayangunj in Bangladesh, and is a member of the Majlis-e-Sura, the JuMB’s central committee. A top NIA target after the Burdwan blast, Sajid carried prize money of Rs 10 lakh on his head.
His arrest comes just a day after that of Zia-ul-Haque, another key figure in the JuMB’s Bengal network, from Malda.
Officials said the Khagragarh terror module, which included deceased bomb-makers Shakil Gazi and Subhan Mondal, was functioning under Sajid.
NIA officials said Sajid lived near the Lalgola madrassa at Mukimnagar in the Murshidabad district in West Bengal.
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