As per reports, Murshidabad resident suspected to be a sleeper cell member, was arrested on Monday for allegedly helping terror outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB) get explosives to carry out the 2013 Bodh Gaya blast.
Hajibulla, a 57-year-old resident of Samsherganj in Bengal’s Murshidabad district, was nabbed by the Kolkata Police’s Special Task Force from Hooghly’s Bandel Railway Station while he was buying a ticket for a local train.
The series of nine blasts in and around the Mahabodhi temple complex in Bodh Gaya, injured five people, including two Buddhist monks, on 7th July 2013. At the time of blast Dalai Lama, along with several foreign Buddhist Pilgrims, were camping at Bodh Gaya to participate in a month-long Kalachakra puja.
Earlier, a National Investigative Agency (NIA) Special Court awarded life imprisonment to all the five accused in connection with the same.
Umer Siddiqui, Azaharuddin Qureshi, Imtiyaz Ansari, Haider Ali, Mujibullah Ansari and a juvenile, all belonging to the Indian Mujahideen, were accused in the case. The juvenile convicted in this case was also involved in Patna’s Gandhi Maidan blast.
Earlier too, JMB operatives, Paigambar Sheikh (24) and Jamirul Sheikh (31), both residents of Murshidabad district, suspected to be involved in the Bodh Gaya blasts, who were apprehended by Kolkata Police Special Task Force (STF) from Murshidabad and Darjeeling districts of West Bengal, revealed that Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is attempting to seek revenge of genocide of Rohingyas in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar by targeting Buddhist pilgrimages across India.
Based on the inputs, received by the two accused police raided a house in Dhuliyan in Murshidabad district and recovered more than 200 kg ammonium nitrate, 50 detonators, timers, sockets and tiffin boxes. Police suspect that the bombs exploded in Bodh Gaya last month were manufactured here. However, the owner of the house is on the run.
Three months after the Bodh Gaya blast, a series of bomb blasts had occurred at the ‘Hunkar Rally’ venue in Patna’s Gandhi Maidan, which was addressed by Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Five persons were killed and over 89 injured in the serial blasts that took place on 27th October 2013.
Both the terror cases are being probed by the National Investigative Agency (NIA). The NIA had until now arrested 11 accused in the Patna case and six in the Bodh Gaya case.
