BSF intelligence report links JMB and ABT sleeper cells to unrest in Murshidabad, with accusations of incitement and foreign influence in recent violence.
Kolkata/Berhampore: Bangladesh-based radical outfits are suspected to have triggered the anti-Waqf law agitation in Murshidabad of West Bengal with the help of their sleeper cells across the border. This startling finding has emerged in an intelligence report of the Border Security Force (BSF), which has been deployed to restore normalcy in the troubled areas.
The report also held two such outfits, Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), responsible for the unrest, according to sources. While a widespread JMB network was first traced in the state with the Khagragarh blast in October of 2014, arrests of ABT members have become regular here in the last three four months.
The BSF report claimed that the sleeper cell members of the two banned groups made several video calls using social media apps for planning across the India-Bangladesh border recently, sources revealed. These calls were traced near Dhulian at Jangipur in Murshidabad and Chapai Nawabganj in Bangladesh. Interestingly, JMB and ABT have been very active in Chapai Nawabganj also.
The report further pointed out that the modus operandi involved teenaged boys and youths, in the age group of 12-25 years, who were brainwashed and were engaged in arson, rioting and looting at public and private properties including houses and business establishments that had happened also in Bangladesh after the fall of Sheikh Hasina government.
This became also evident from the statements of the family of Ijaz Ahmed, a teenager, who participated in the violent anti-Waqf law stir at Suti and succumbed to bullet injuries later. His mother Saima Bibi said that SDPI leaders brainwashed her son to join the protest.
While Union Minister of State and state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar blamed two banned outfits, PFI and SIMI, for engineering the Jangipur violence with the help of their Bangladeshi affiliates, leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari, claimed, "ABT extremists were directly involved in this violence. They targeted the Hindus at Ratanpur, Ghoshpara, Zafarabad in Dhulian." TMC Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale, however, accused Mr Majumdar of engineering the violence.
He posted on X-handle, “During a tense situation, Mr Majumdar (who is also BJP Bengal chief) was actively trying to create a rift between communities & fuel riots. I want to ask @DrSukantaBJP babu: Do you have any sense of responsibility as a Union Minister? You knowingly posted fake photos with the intention of fueling riots. As a Minister, aren’t you ashamed of committing a crime to destabilize law and order? You deleted your tweet after being caught.”
He claimed, “As a Union Minister, why haven’t you apologized yet for sharing fake communal propaganda, which can lead to riots? Or was that your intention all along and you thought you wouldn’t get caught? It is clear that the Minister was inciting riots in Bengal on the orders of Home Minister Amit Shah. It’s a toolkit - use ministers to incite tensions & then use that as an excuse to send Central Forces to Bengal...”
