Kolkata: Five, including two Bangladesh nationals, get life term in 2016 terror plot case

Five alleged members of banned extremist organisation Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh were on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment by a Kolkata court for their role in a 2016 plot to carry out bomb attacks and other subversive activities in India, The Indian Express reported.

Two of those sentenced to life terms, Anwar Hossain Faruque and Mohammad Rubel, are Bangladeshi nationals from Jamalpur.

The others are Maulana Yusuf Sheikh from West Bengal’s Burdwan, and Mohammad Sahidul Islam and Jabirul Islam from Assam.

The verdict was delivered by special judge Rohan Sinha after a trial based on an investigation by the Kolkata Police Special Task Force, The Indian Express reported.

The police had registered the case in 2016 following intelligence on suspected Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh activities.

An unidentified official told the newspaper that intelligence gathered showed that members of the alleged terror module planned to illegally enter India through the border in the North 24 Parganas district to meet associates in India.

They allegedly wanted to carry out attacks in the Northeast, southern states and other parts of the country, the official said.

In September 2016, six men were arrested from Bengal and Assam with explosives, components of improvised explosive devices, documents, laptops and currency notes, Hindustan Times quoted Additional Commissioner of Police Solomon Nesakumar as saying. .

They were charged under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Foreigners Act. However, during the proceedings, one of them, Abdul Kalam, was discharged for lack of sufficient evidence, Hindustan Times reported.

In 2019, the Ministry of Home Affairs banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh and its Indian sister organisations for allegedly promoting acts of terrorism.