Key Burdwan suspects were training women in bomb-making

NEW DELHI: Two key suspects in the Burdwan blast case, Sheikh Kausar and Yusuf Shaikh, were mostly indoctrinating women and training them in bomb-making at two West Bengal madrasas currently under NIA scanner — the Simulia madrasa in Burdwan and Lalgola madrasa in Murshidabad.
Sources in intelligence agencies said the NIA probe had found that the two madrasas were frequented largely by women."They were indoctrinated to take up jihad and taught the basics of making improvised explosive devices (IEDs)," said a senior official of the security establishment.
However, the identity and whereabouts of women who may have received training at these madrasas are still a matter of investigation. Kausar and Yusuf are said to have given a rather lax West Bengal police the slip by moving to safer hideouts soon after the blasts.
This slip-up by the state police came up for discussion at the meeting between West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and national security adviser Ajit Doval in Kolkata on Monday. Banerjee is said to have admitted to certain lapses on part of the state police, including their failure to reach the blast site immediately and recovery of bombs by NIA after the CID had searched and sealed the Burdwan blast site. She indicated to Doval that action would be initiated against the errant cops.
Doval on Tuesday briefed home minister Rajnath Singh regarding his discussions with Banerjee, particularly her offer of full cooperation with the central probe. Banerjee, Singh was told, appreciated the gravity of the threat, particularly its national and international ramifications, and agreed that the Centre and state must work together to counter it.
Singh, on his part, sought deeper investigation into the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) network and a crackdown on its hideouts.
Meanwhile, the home ministry, acting on a request of the Bangladesh government seeking details of the Burdwan case and JMB plot to use India as a terror base, is preparing a report to be sent to Dhaka through the ministry of external affairs. The NIA on Tuesday submitted the necessary inputs to the home ministry for the dossier.
In the report, the central probe agency said around 22 cadres may have been part of the JMB network in India. The number of accused and suspects so far is around 40, of which four, including Razia Bibi and Alima Bibi and one male cadre each from West Bengal and Assam, have been arrested.
The network was active in India for last three years, though the two suspects killed in the Burdwan blast on October 2, Subhan Mondal and Shakil Gazi, had rented the Khagragarh house only in July 2014. The house belongs to a Trinamool Congress supporter, but the agencies have not found anything to link him to the terror plot.
The JMB modules working in India are believed to have sent 3-4 consignments of 30 bombs each to Bangladesh since 2011. Around 100 more bombs have been unearthed in raids by the West Bengal CID and NIA following the Burdwan blast. "We are still investigating whether all these bombs were meant for transportation to Bangladesh or were to be used locally as well," an official said, adding that the bombs were essentially low-impact IEDs.