New Delhi: A team of NIA sleuths along with explosives experts yesterday visited the site of the blast earlier this month in Burdwan district of West Bengal and collected certain exhibits from the crime scene.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) officers also visited Simulia Madrasa, located in Burdwan district, where the accused were allegedly radicalised in jihadi ideology, an official release said here.
Six persons were arrested by police in the northeastern state of Assam yesterday in connection with the blast in which a terror angle is being suspected. NIA teams are camping in Burdwan, Kolkata, Nadia and Assam for the investigation. Several key players in the conspiracy have been identified and local police as well as intelligence agencies are on the look out for them.
Joint teams of the West Bengal CID, NIA and central intelligence agencies are interrogating the three accused persons who were arrested following the blast—two women, Razia and Amina, and Badrul Alam Molla, the release said.
As per the orders of the NIA Special Court, Kolkata, the case documents and properties are in the process of being handed over by CID to NIA.
The accused shall be produced before the NIA Special Court tomorrow and NIA shall seek further police custody of the arrested persons for questioning, the release added.
The case pertains to an explosion at a rented house at Khagragarh on Oct. 2 in which two persons, believed to be members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, died. The matter is being investigated by the NIA's Kolkata branch after it registered a case on Friday to probe the matter.
The Centre decided to entrust the investigation to the agency without taking the consent of the Bengal government by invoking a special provision in the NIA Act that allows it to initiate an NIA probe into terror cases anywhere in the country.
This is the second time since NIA's inception in 2008 that this provision has been invoked.
Section 6(5) of the NIA Act, 2008, empowers the Centre to suo motu direct the agency to investigate a Scheduled offence committed anywhere in India.
The decision to hand over the case to NIA was taken by the Centre in view of the international ramifications of the case following suspicions that some Bangladeshis might be involved in the affair, official sources said.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin told reporters that India has received a request from Bangladesh seeking information about the case. Security agencies are tabulating the information and the details would be shared with Dhaka, he said.
