A special task force of West Bengal police, supported by sleuths of central intelligence, have arrested four Muslim youngmen in Kolkata on Friday, when they were on way to Bangladesh to join the militant group, Islamic State (IS).
“It is apparent from what they confess that some IS recruiters are operating in Bangladesh. These boys have been in touch with them and received specific rendezvous spots from them in Bangladesh to meet up,” one STF official told bdnews24.com after the arrests. But he was not willing to be named.
He said they would pass to Bangladesh agencies all the details they get from these four because that may help them identify the IS cells operating in there and crack those down.
“We feel the IS cell these four were in touch with is operating with support from Jamaat and other hardliner Islamist groups.”
The STF official said that after questioning the four arrested youngmen, two of them engineering students, it was found that at least eleven other Muslim youth were in touch with the IS recruiters in Bangladesh.
This makes it clear that the IS, like the Al-Qaeda before it, is turning to global recruitment by upholding its cause not as a regional but as a Pan-Islamic issue.
Kolkata police commissioner Surajit Purkayastha said his force was not aware of the arrests.
“This was done at the bidding of some central agency,” is all he was willing to say.
He also ducked questions about reports that some hardliner Islamist radicals and Jamaat supporters accused of murder and mayhem in Bangladesh have taken shelter with some top Trinamul Congress leaders in West Bengal.
“We need details, not kite-flying” was his brief reaction.
Source: bdnews24
