Assam: 12 ‘Jihadis’ of Bangladeshi terror group nabbed in search operation

Twelve alleged Jihadis, with links to the Bangladesh-based terror group Ansarul Islam, were arrested from Assam’s Barpeta and Morigaon districts, police officers said on Thursday.

Seven others, suspected to be linkmen of the same outfit were also nabbed in Morigaon district. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said two major terror modules were busted in the state in a “nationally coordinated operation”.

An alleged jihadi with links to the terror outift was also arrested from the same district earlier where he managed a madrasa, PTI reported quoting the police on Thursday.

As per Morigaon superintendent of police Aparna Natarjan, the man – identified as Mustafa, arrested earlier from a madarsa had several financial transactions in 2019 with Amiruddin Ansari and Mamun Rashid, two militants of Ansarul Islam, which is affiliated to the Al-Qaeda in Indian subcontinent.

During investigations it came to light that he had given shelter to a ‘wanted person’ of a foreign country in the madrasa and a case has been registered under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters in Guwahati that the madrasa is a private one and has been closed. All government madrasas are closed in Assam. There have been reports of Ansarul Islam militants being active in the state and officials are making efforts to nab them.

Ansarul Islam was earlier called the Ansarul Bangla Team.

Five alleged members of the outfit were first arrested from Barpeta in March this year and since then nearly 20 persons have been nabbed so far. Acting Director General of police Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta had then said that Ansarul Islam was involved in the killing of bloggers, artists, poets and those who did not follow radical fundamentalism or had an independent train of thoughts.