NSA to oversee terror probe in West Bengal, get Mamata govt on board

NEW DELHI: Taking a serious view of the revelations of a deep terror network in West Bengal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will send national security adviser Ajit Doval to the state on Monday to personally oversee the ongoing investigations and persuade the state government to be part of the solution.
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Doval will be accompanied by IB chief Asif Ibrahim during his visit, signalling the importance the government is giving to these developments.Doval's first engagement will be a meeting with chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
The NSA will carry a personal message from the PM asking for “full support” of the state government in carrying out the investigations on an al-Qaida affiliate taking root in the border state.
Faced with some resistance from the Mamata government on investigations into the terror network in the wake of the Burdwan blasts, an alarmed Central government has asked Doval to brief the Trinamool dispensation at length and “sensitise” it to the dangers of what has been unravelling.
Accompanied by top officials, Doval will even go to Burdwan to personally oversee the probe which has since been handed over to NIA. It's not yet clear whether he will visit Murshidabad where Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) leaders were apparently using a madrassa to train their cadres.

National security advisor Ajit Kumar Doval (AFP Photo)
The visit comes on the back of NIA chief Sharad Kumar's revelation that they had found some 58 terror modules operating in West Bengal. The investigators have zeroed in on some 180 Bangladeshi nationals operating these modules and working with JMB. This deadly al-Qaida affiliate has reportedly been planning attacks both in India and Bangladesh.
Reports said the two masterminds identified as Anisur and Mufazzal Hussain are Bangladeshi citizens. Doval will also review the information gathered from the confessions of the captured women militants, who have revealed a huge network of IED manufacturers and an expanding terror network.
The developments are particularly difficult for both the Central and state government. Battling waning popularity in the aftermath of the Saradha scam, Banerjee has been resisting Central involvement in the investigations. But home ministry overrode her objections to bring NIA into the probe. She cannot publicly oppose the investigations and risk further loss of popularity by appearing to side with the dark forces, a perception that might be her undoing in the next elections. But she believes the unravelling of the terror network could affect her political equations as well.
The JMB in Bangladesh had been decimated by the Sheikh Hasina government in 2007, but it found a safe haven in West Bengal a few years later. The links between JMB, Jamaat-e-Islami and al-Qaida have not only created a new terror network here, but are also feeding off the antipathy between the Awami League and opposition BNP in Bangladesh (Jamaat is allied to BNP). Banerjee herself has been antagonistic to the Awami League government in Dhaka and diplomatic sources here said she had reached out to the Jamaat several years ago, which rang alarm bells in the security establishment. Security sources say they had sent ‘cautionary' reports to Kolkata in the past few years, with little or no response from the state government.