NIA's chargesheet on Burdwan blast revealsSaleem Samad
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a banned terror outfit, had a plan to overthrow the Sheikh Hasina government through a violent terror campaign, according to a revelation Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA) has made in the charge sheet of the sensational Burdwan blast case.
NIA submitted the charge sheet to a Kolkata court against 21 people, including four Bangladeshi nationals on Monday, more than six months after an explosion in a house in West Bengal's Burdwan district.
The accused have been charged under various sections of Foreigners Act and Passport Act relating to offences of terrorism, conspiracy, recruitment, funding, running terrorist training camps, possession of arms and explosives.
NIA has so far arrested 17 people in this case, the rest remains fugitives.
A press statement issued by the NIA says the charge sheet has been filed against the accused "for their involvement in the conspiracy of JMB, a proscribed terrorist organisation in Bangladesh, to overthrow the existing democratic government in Bangladesh through violent terrorist acts and replace it with a hard-line Shariah-based Islamic rule, which came to light after the accidental blast."
The NIA claims the JMB has established its network, particularly in Murshidabad, Nadia, Malda, Birbhum and Burdwan in West Bengal, Barpeta in Assam and Sahibganj and Pakur in Jharkhand.
"Its activities in India primarily included recruitment, radicalisation and training of vulnerable youth in a systematic and organised manner," said the agency in its statement.
The NIA further alleges: "A network of terrorist training camps at selected madrasa (Islamic schools) and other hideouts was found to be in operation."
During the investigation, the agency has examined more than 250 witnesses and conducted around 100 searches across the states of West Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand.
Testimonies gathered by the NIA provide details about the alleged bomb-making unit in the house, and sequence of events leading up to the explosion.
Two people were killed in the blast that took place in a house at Khagragarh in Burdwan district on October 2, 2014.
Initially assumed to be a gas cylinder blast or explosion of crude bombs, investigations later revealed that the two people who were killed were using fairly sophisticated Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
Investigators have found that IEDs were being fabricated in the house and later smugged out to neighbouring Bangladesh.
With international links surfacing, the central probe agency took over the case from state police a few days after the explosion.