A special court of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Bengaluru on Monday sentenced a Bangladeshi citizen to seven years in prison for abetting acts of terrorism in India.
A Bangladeshi national, Jahidul Islam, was promoting terrorist activities in India at the behest of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh India (JMB – India), officials said.
Jahidul Islam was also fined Rs 57,000 in cases related to extortion, conspiracy and money laundering, and procurement of ammunition to further the terrorist campaign in India. In this case, a total of 11 suspects have been convicted in related cases so far.
The first case was registered by the Bengaluru City Police in June 2019, based on information received by the NIA during the investigation of the Burdwan Blast case by the Kolkata Branch Office of the agency. The NIA then registered a case and started an investigation into the matter, along with related robbery cases.
According to the NIA investigation, Jahidul Islam, along with fugitive JMB chief Salauddin Salehin, crossed into India illegally in 2014 after escaping from Bangladesh police custody in connection with the 2005 serial blasts in his country. While in hiding, he and his accomplices planned the October 2014 blasts in Burdwan.
After the blast, Jahidul and his aides fled to Bengaluru, where he converted and recruited Muslim youths from West Bengal and Assam to further JMB’s anti-India activities. Jahidul Islam and his accomplices were also behind the Bodhgaya blast in January 2018, the NIA investigation found.
The investigation also revealed that Jahidul also conspired to collect money through extortion to promote the JMB’s terrorist agenda in India. In 2018, they committed four robberies in Bengaluru as part of their agenda, and used the looted money to procure ammunition, and organize hideouts and training facilities to carry out terrorist activities.
Further investigations into this matter and efforts to track down the fleeing suspects are ongoing.
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