One more person with alleged links with Bangladeshi terror outfit Ansarul Islam was arrested in Assam’s Morigaon district on Friday and he was charged under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), police said.
Eight people, including madrasa teachers, were taken into custody for allegedly being associated with the same terror group, also known as Ansarul Bangla Team (ABT), in the past two days in the district. Barpeta district police too arrested eight other such people on the intervening night of August 27 and 28. Cases under UAPA have been filed against all these people of the two districts, police said.
National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials have reached the state to conduct further interrogation of the arrested people, police said. A Barpeta court on Friday remanded the eight accused to nine days’ police custody while those arrested in Morigaon district were sent to police remand for 12 days.
Additional Superintendent of Police Suprotive Lal Baruah told reporters in Morigaon that the force during the day took into custody one person, identified as Afsaruddin Bhuyan, from Moirabari area in the district. Bhuyan who was running a computer shop was engaged in financial transactions with members of the ABT, Baruah said.
Another person, Mufti Mustafa, who was arrested on Thursday in the district, was also accused of being involved in financial transactions with operatives of Ansarul Islam, which is affiliated with a larger outfit Al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). Mustafa used to run a private madrasa in the district and the seven suspected linkmen, who were also arrested along with him, were teachers in another such religious institute.
There is considerable evidence that the arrested people are involved in radicalising the Muslim youths in the private madrasas and being involved in activities inimical to national interests, Baruah said. The Morigaon district administration has closed down the two private madrasas and their students will be adjusted in regular government schools.
A strict vigil is being maintained in other madrasas of the district, he said. Barpeta Superintendent of Police Amitabh Sinha said there are reports that two Bangladeshis had sneaked into the country and were in touch with the arrested persons. It was in Barpeta where five alleged members of Ansarul Islam were arrested in March and since then, over 30 people linked with it have been nabbed before the arrests made in July.
Two cases were registered in connection with the earlier arrests with one being investigated by the NIA and the other by Barpeta police. There is also a connection between these people and others arrested recently in Tripura and Madhya Pradesh, Sinha said adding that central agencies are probing into the matter.
