ONE B’DESHI SENTENCED TO 7 YRS RI BY NIA SPL COURT IN JMB BENGALURU CASES
New Delhi 30th December 2024: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Special Court, Bengaluru, on Monday sentenced one Bangladeshi national to seven years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) in a series of cases relating to promotion of the activities of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh India (JMB – India).
Jahidul Islam @ Kausar has also been fined Rs. 57,000 in the cases RC- 19/2019/NIA/DLI & RC-15 to 18/2020/NIA/DLI, connected with offences of dacoity, conspiracy and raising funds, as well as procurement of ammunition. With this, a total of 11 accused have been convicted in these cases.
The initial case was registered by Bengaluru City police in June 2019, based on the information generated by NIA during investigation of the Burdwan Blast case of the agency’s Kolkata Branch Office. NIA subsequently registered the case as RC-19/2019/NIA/DLI and initiated a probe in the matter, along with the connected dacoity cases as RC-15 to 18/2020/NIA/DLI.
As per NIA investigations, Jahidul Islam, the JMB Amir of India, along with absconding JMB head Salauddin Salehin had illegally crossed over into India in 2014 after escaping the custody of Bangladesh police in connection with the year 2005 serial blasts in Bangladesh. During the hiding, he and his associates were involved in the October 2014 Burdwan blast case.
After the blast, Jahidul and his aides fled to Bengaluru, where he radicalised and recruited gullible Muslim youth from West Bengal and Assam for furthering the anti-India activities of JMB. The accused and his associates had also committed the blast in Bodhgaya in January 2018.
NIA investigations had further revealed that the accused and his associates had also conspired to raise funds through dacoity for furthering the activities of JMB. During 2018, they had committed four dacoities in Bengaluru as part of this agenda, and had used the looted money for procuring ammunition, and arranging hideouts and training to carry out terrorist activities.
Further efforts to arrest absconding accused are continuing.
