NEW DELHI: Bangladeshi terror outfit Jamaat-ul Mujahideen (JMB), banned by India in May this year, is expanding its footprint in Assam, Odisha and Jharkhand, apart from setting up new bases in Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, National Investigation Agency (NIA) chief Y C Modi said on Monday.

“A list of 125 suspected JMB members has been circulated to the states concerned,” he said in his address at the inaugural session of a two-day conference of heads of anti-terrorism squads and special task forces of various state police.

NIA Inspector General Alok Mittal said JMB — linked to Burdwan blasts of 2014 and last year’s Bodh Gaya blast — had set up 20-22 hideouts in Bengaluru and tried to spread its bases in South India between 2014 to 2018. He said that JMB had even conducted a trial of rocket launchers in Krishnagiri Hills along the Karnataka border and was planning to attack Buddhist temples to avenge “the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar”.

On cases involving Indian youths influenced by Islamic State, Mittal said NIA had registered 28 such cases since 2014 and arrested as many as 127 people from across 14 states. Tamil Nadu tops the list with 33 arrests.

“During investigation of the different modules, several arrested persons confessed that they were radicalised by hate speeches of Zakir Naik, who is in Malaysia. NIA has already issued LR ( letters rogatory ) for his questioning,” said the IG.

Referring to the attempts to revive terrorism in Punjab, Mittal said the banned outfit, Khalistan Liberation Force, has been conspiring to disrupt law and order and communal harmony in in the state with support from across the border and with funding from countries like UK, Italy, France and Australia. KLF link was found in the 8 targeted killings across Punjab, for which NIA has so far arrested 16 suspects.

Mittal said NIA has registered a fresh case relating to anti-India activities of foreign-based outfit Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), which has been radicalising Sikh youths via a pro-Khalistan campaign on social media titled ‘Referendum 2020’. SFJ was recently banned by the home ministry as an unlawful association.

