Two IEDs recovered after arrested JMB operative's disclosure

Hours after a Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operative was arrested, the NIA and Intelligence Bureau Wednesday recovered two improvised explosive devices hidden in a stormwater drain in Ramanagar district based on his information, officials said. The National Investigative Agency had on Tuesday arrested Habibur Rehman Sheikh (28) alias Habibur or Sheikh, wanted in the 2014 Burdwan blast case, from Doddaballapura in Bengaluru rural district.

"On the disclosure of Habibur Rehman who was arrested yesterday, NIA has recovered two Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) today from a Nalla (stormwater drain) near Ramanagar railway track in Bengaluru," NIA said in a statement. NIA has sought the help of bomb disposal squad of Bengaluru police to defuse the IEDs, the statement said.

The NIA said the accused has disclosed his involvement in several dacoities committed in Bengaluru in 2018 in order to raise funds for theJMB's activities. Police officials suspect that the IEDs were meant to carry out terror activities in Bengaluru as well.

The arrested was named in the charge sheet filed by the NIA in the Burdwan bomb blast case in March 2015 "for his direct involvement in the conspiracy of JMB to wage war against governments of India and Bangladesh", an NIA official said. He was a close associate of senior JMB leader Jahidul Islam alias Kausar and was associated with other JMB leaders like Rahamatullah Sheikh and Moulana Yusuf, the official said.

Sheikh was an active member of JMB's Bolpur module in WestBengal and had attended a number of training camps conducted by the terror group, the official alleged. He was produced on Tuesday before a special NIA court in Bengaluru which granted the agency five-day transit remand for further production before a court in Kolkata.

Two persons were killed and another was injured in a bomb explosion at a house in the Khagragarh locality of Burdwan on October 2, 2014. The outfit was banned by the Bangladesh government in 2005, while India outlawed it this year in May.