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Updated: Jan 29, 2019 19:38 IST

Two arrests in Bengal and a supplementary charge sheet filed against six persons, including a Bangladeshi national currently in a Patna jail, at a special court in the Bihar capital have thrown light on the fact that the same men linked to the banned Bangladesh terror outfit Jamaatul Muhadeen Bangladesh (JMB) were behind both an IED explosion in Bengal’s Burdwan in 2014 and the planting of three IEDs at the Mahavihara Buddhist temple complex in Bihar’s BodhGaya during the visit of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in January 2018.

Two IEDs exploded in the temple complex but there were no casualties.

The National Investigative Agency (NIA) arrested Kadar Kazi and Sajjad Ali in the Arambagh area of Bengal’s Hooghly district on Monday night for alleged links with the Burdwan blast in 2014 that had killed two and blown the lid off a flourishing JMB network in districts of West Bengal.



This brings the total number of arrests in the Burdwan case up to 32.

Kazi is believed to an associate of Bangladesh national Mohammed Jahidul Islam alias Bomaru Mizan alias Kausar, an JMB operative who is the key accused in both Burdwan and Bodh Gaya incidents. Kausar was arrested near Bengaluru last year and a Bihar police officer has confirmed that he is currently lodged in Kolkata’s Presidency jail.

Meanwhile, the NIA filed a supplementary charge sheet against six men including ‘Kausar’ at a special court in Patna in connection with the Bodh Gaya blasts of 2018.

The probe agency had already filed a charge sheet against three accused in September last year. Kausar, who awaits a death sentence in Bangladesh for three separate cases, was one of the key accused in the serial blasts in 63 Bangladesh districts in 2005. He had escaped from a prison van during a staged ambush on the India-Bangladesh border and crossed over to West Bengal.

After the 2014 Burdwan blast, it was learned that the JMB was planning to overthrow the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh. NIA investigations revealed that Kausar along with the other accused, attempted to attack the Bodh Gaya temple complex and other symbols of Buddhist faith ostensibly as retaliation for alleged atrocities by the Buddhist majority of Myanmar against the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority.

Kausar has also been charge sheeted under Sec 14 of the Foreigners Act.