IANS photo
Guwahati/Agartala, Sep 12: Two more suspected cadres of the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), an affiliate of the Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) terror group, were arrested in Assam on Monday, officials said.
Police officials said that Musadik Hussain was arrested in Morigaon and Ikramul Islam, was arrested from neighbouring Nagaon.
The duo were absconding for over a month and they were associated with cleric Mufti Mustafa, who had been earlier arrested.
Earlier, one madrasa was demolished in Morigaon after suspected terror links with the AQIS backed ABT, a Bangladesh-based terror outfit.
Four private madrasas in Assam have been demolished in three districts in the past one month over the alleged links with the terror outfits and attempts to set up "jihadi sleeper cells" in the northeastern state.
Since April this year, Assam Police have arrested around 40 terror suspects in connection to AQIS-backed modules and a strict vigil is being maintained, particularly in the minority-dominated areas of western and central Assam.
Many of the detainees are imams at mosques or teachers at private madrasas.
Last week, the villagers of Pakhiura Char in Goalpara district voluntarily demolished a private madrasa that had employed two suspected Bangladeshi nationals linked to jihadi terror outfits
The Assam government had handed over some of the cases of "jihadi terror modules" to the NIA after preliminary investigation.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who also holds the Home portfolio, said that Assam has become a hotbed of "jihadi activities" and also announced that religious teachers at mosques and madrasas in Assam will be required to register themselves on a government portal if they come from outside the state.
Following the arrest of many jihadi cadres, the northeastern states which share a border with Bangladesh have stepped up the vigilance.
Police and intelligence officials in Agartala and Shillong separately said the strict surveillance over the jihadi activities have further intensified and intelligence inputs between the various security agencies being shared for taking further course of action.
Meghalaya Director-General of Police Lajja Ram Bishnoi said in Shillong that after getting the inputs of jihadi activities in Assam, directions have been given to all the police stations and outposts particularly in those areas having borders with Bangladesh to keep a close watch on the bordering villages.
"Our intelligence officials and police personnel are alert over the jihadi activities," the police officer told the media.
In Agartala, a senior police officer said that Border Security Force (BSF) troopers and the people of the bordering areas have been alerted to keep a close watch in their respective areas.
The three cadres, who were recently arrested in Tripura for their links with the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), have been subsequently taken to Assam as part of the investigation against the jihadi group.
Intelligence officials found links between these three persons with the four arrested in Bhopal in April for their affiliation to the JMB.
A senior Tripura police official on Monday said that issues related to illegal immigration of Bangladeshi national in Tripura were reviewed at a high level meeting of the top police officials.
"It has been decided that important cases relating to the illegal entry of Bangladeshi nationals into Tripura would be transferred to a Special Investigation Team formed at Tripura Police Crime Branch. This is to enable and ensure concentrated, focused and end to end investigation in coordination with other security agencies working in Tripura and at the Central level to identify organised networks involved in such anti-national activities," the official told IANS.
He said that in the recent past a large number of illegal Bangladesh nationals were arrested and specific cases were registered with various police stations of Tripura.
So far, six important cases have been transferred for investigation to the SIT of Crime Branch, the official said.