Abdul Motin was arrested from Kerala by the Kolkata Police. (Representational pic)
The Special Task Force of the Kolkata Police arrested a Jamaat ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operative from Kerala on Thursday in connection with the 2014 Burdwan blast, which had resulted in the death of two suspected terrorists.
The suspect -- Abdul Motin -- hails from Assam's Barpeta district, where the JMB once had a sleeper module. He was one of the 15 people trained in handling arms and manufacturing improvised explosive devices at Simulia madrasa in the region.
"Following new developments in the Burdwan blast case, we had been tasked with capturing Abdul Motin. Now that the West Bengal police have nabbed him, we will send a team to interrogate the suspect and arrest him if needed," Assam Director General of Police Kuladhar Saikia told NDTV.
Police said Abdul Motin had left Bengal for Kerala immediately after the Burdwan incident on October 2, 2014, when an explosive accidentally went off on the first floor of a rented house in Khagragarh area. His presence in Kerala came to light after the NIA arrested two other suspects, Kadar Kazi and Sajjad Ali, from Arambagh in Bengal's Hooghly district on January 28.
In a chargesheet submitted to a special court on March 30, 2015, the NIA had named 21 people - including four Bangladeshi nationals - in an alleged conspiracy to overthrow Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina government through terrorist attacks and replace it with a Sharia-based Islamic regime.
The investigative agency also filed two supplementary chargesheets: one in July 2015, where six people (including a Bangladeshi national) were named, and the other against 28 people in December 2015.