Suspected terrorist Javed Munshi wanted by Jammu and Kashmir police, who was arrested from West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district, on Sunday had travelled to Kolkata's adjoining pocket twice in 2021 and 2022 keeping the state’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies in dark, said police sources.
“In 2021, Munshi visited his brother-in-law’s house in Canning, South 24 Parganas, and stayed for 12 days. Next year, he came and stayed for a week. He even visited Kolkata's iconic Victoria Memorial. None of us had any lead about his Bengal in two consecutive years,” said an officer of Intelligence Branch (IB).
Munshi’s arrest in a joint operation conducted by the Bengal police Special Task Force (STF) and J&K police is said to be a major breakthrough as the suspect is described as an explosive and weapons expert affiliated to the banned Kashmiri outfit Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen, which aims to merge Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan and promote pan-Islamist ideas.
Revealing Munshi's footprints from Kashmir to Bengal, an IB officer said he had travelled to Delhi by train from the valley. “From the national capital, he took a flight to arrive in Kolkata and then boarded a local train melting into the crowd to reach Canning on December 19. We are yet to ascertain whether Munshi had a plan to sneak into Bangladesh, which has been witnessing rise of Islamic extremism following Sheikh Hasina’s government was overthrown from power in August this year,” said the IB officer.
The officers of the intelligence agencies came to know Munshi was on his way to Bangladesh through the porous border on the instructions of his handlers in the Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Taiba.
“Munshi was on the run as our counterparts in Jammu and Kashmir launched a massive hunt for him. After arriving in Bengal, he was living at the rented house of his brother-in-law Nisar Ahmed, a shawl seller who is married to his sister Razia Bibi alias Rosy in J&k,” said an officer of the Bengal STF.
The officer said this time they had a specific tip off about Munshi’s entry to Bengal and that was why he was picked up within three days of his arrival.
Bengal is witnessing activities of the operatives of terrorist outfits since the unrest in Bangladesh broke out. In a massive crackdown last week, Assam police arrested eight persons, believed to be operatives of banned outfit Ansar-al-Islami in Bangladesh, from West Bengal, Assam and Kerala.
One of the arrested suspects is believed to be a key operative of the Bangladesh based outfit and a resident of Jessore district and two others are from West Bengal’s Murshidabad district.
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