The Assam Police has busted five “jihadi” modules with links to Al Qaeda-affiliated terror outfits in Bangladesh since March, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Thursday.
“Five modules [busted] in five months… so the issue is serious,” Sarma said, addressing a press conference in Guwahati on Thursday.
Since March, Assam Police, aided by Intel inputs from Central agencies, have been carrying out operations in lower districts of Barpeta and Bongaigaon. These operations have revealed that six Bangladeshi nationals entered the state illegally to “indoctrinate youths”, and one of them — Mohammed Suman — was arrested from Barpeta in March, said Sarma.
These individuals have alleged links to the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a banned terror outfit of Bangladesh with links to Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). According to Sarma, they had been operating several training camps during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sarma said Suman had been living in the “guise of an Arabic teacher in a madrasa, and also worked as an imam”. Another individual, named Mufti Mustafa, was arrested from Moirabari in Morigaon district on July 28. Sarma said he ran a madrasa, where children were indoctrinated in “jihadi” ideology.
On Thursday, Mustafa’s madrasa in Moirabari was demolished by bulldozers because it was constructed “without permission”, Sarma said.
Sarma said the “hub of activities of all the [terror] modules” were turning out to be madrasas.
