The NIA on Tuesday said that it has arrested an absconding Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operative, wanted in the 2014 Burdwan blast case from rural Bengaluru.
The Times of India cited NIA sources saying that the counter-terror agency had nabbed him based on a credible tip-off on Monday.
The Deccan Herald reported that the terror accused was staying in a rented accommodation within a local mosque.
The JMB operative, who was identified as 27-year-old Habibur Rehman Sheikh alias Habibur Kabore Shaik or Habibur SK, was arrested by the NIA from Doddabalapura town located near the Karnataka capital.
According to senior officials of the counter-terror probe agency, Sheikh was a close associate of senior JMB leader Jahidul Islam alias Kausar and was associated with other JMB leaders like Rahamatullah Sheikh and Moulana Yusuf.
"He was named in the charge-sheet filed by the NIA in the case in March 2015, for his direct involvement in the conspiracy of the JMB to wage war against governments of India and Bangladesh," an NIA official said in Delhi.
The official said that Sheikh was an active member of JMB's Bolpur module in West Bengal and had attended a number of training camps conducted by the JMB.
The JMB operative was produced before the NIA Special Judge in Bengaluru earlier in the day and the judge has granted five days' transit remand for producing him before the Special NIA Court in Kolkata.
Prior to Habibur’s arrest, the NIA had previously arrested another terror suspect from the same banned outfit near Bengaluru. In August 2018, the NIA had arrested Mohammed Jahidul Islam who is also an accused in the Burdwan blast case and is also the alleged mastermind of the 2013 Bodh Gaya blasts. In those blasts at the UNESCO World Heritage sites, seven people were injured.
At least two persons died and another was injured in a bomb explosion at a house in the Khagragarh locality of Burdwan on October 2, 2014. The Bangladesh government banned the JMB in 2005, while India banned it in May 2018.