NIA hunts for terror couples

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the terror network in eastern India, has turned its focus on 12 couples.

These men and women are key figures in the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh’s (JuMB) extensive terror network that spreads across Bengal, Assam and Bangladesh, sources said.According to sources, the NIA believes these couples have made their way into Bangladesh after the October 2 Burdwan blast.

The blast, which killed two of the bomb-makers and injured one, lifted the lid over a massive terror network that has deeply rooted itself across West Bengal and Assam, with its base being in neighbouring Bangladesh. Sources pointed out that NIA is most concerned with the women operatives, who reportedly play equal role as their male counterparts. In most cases they are married to men who are part of the JuMB’s widespread network.

“The women would be the hardest to find since they hardly venture out. Since they are usually covered in burqas and with no photographs, it becomes even more difficult, ” a senior official said. The agencies have come to know after interrogating Rajira Bibi and Amina Bibi, the two women arrested from the October 2 blast site, that all of them are trained in making IEDs.

“They are as militant in their belief as the men. They have been indoctrinated in the ways of jihad. They are neither squeamish about killing nor about getting killed for the cause,” an official said.