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Md Musa, first IS operative held in Bengal, jailed for life for 2014 blast
Musa had links with the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) team that carried out the terror attack at Dhaka’s Holey Artisan Bakery in 2016, killing 22 people, mostly foreigners.
KOLKATA: A Kolkata court on Friday ordered life imprisonment for Muhammad Masiruddin alias Md Musa, the first Islamic State (IS) operative held in Bengal in connection with the 2014 bomb blast in a rented house at Khagragarh in Bengal’s East Burdwan district.
National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials found during investigation that Musa also had links with the team of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) that carried out the terror attack at Dhaka’s Holey Artisan Bakery in 2016, killing 22 people, mostly foreigners.
A team of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials from the USA came to Kolkata in 2016 to interrogate Musa after he was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Bengal police from a train in Burdwan district. He was handed over to the NIA.
Musa was found to be the handler of the JMB operatives that set up base in Bengal, NIA told the court during hearing.
NIA’s lawyer Shyamal Ghosh, said Musa was found guilty under multiple sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Arms Act.
“The court sentenced him to life imprisonment under two of these sections and jail terms, ranging between two to ten years, in the rest. All sentences will run concurrently,” said Ghosh.
In October 2021, the NIA court ordered a 29-year jail sentence for Kausar, a JMB operative held in the Khagragarh blast case. He was arrested from a guest house in Bengaluru in August 2018 during a joint operation by the NIA and local police.
On October 2, 2014, when Bengal was celebrating Durga Puja, an improvised explosive device (IED) explosion killed two persons in Khagragarh and exposed a network of Bangladeshi terrorists in the state.
NIA took over the probe and submitted the first charge sheet in March 2015. “The rented house was occupied by the members of JMB, ostensibly for burkha-stitching, though in reality it was being used for the nefarious activity of bomb-making,” the NIA said in a statement that year.
A large number of IEDs, explosives, hand grenades and training videos were recovered during the investigation which also pointed at JMB sleeper cells in the districts of Bengal. Data recovered from Musa’s laptop showed that he was in touch with IS operatives in other nations.
In August 2019, the NIA court in Kolkata convicted 19 people, including four Bangladeshis, in the Khagragarh blast case.
The accused were convicted under UAPA, IPC, Explosive Substances Act and the Arms Act.
