NIA starts probe in Bengal railway station blast that injured minister

The NIA has not ruled out the possibility of the involvement Bangladeshi terror outfit JMB into the bomb attack.

A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday began a probe into the blast that injured West Bengal’s deputy labour minister Jakir Hossain and 22 Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers at Nimtita railway station in Murshidabad district on the night of February 17.

The site of blast at the Nimtita railway station in Murshidabad.(ANI )

Hossain and the others are admitted in hospital.

The NIA team which reached Murshidabad on Wednesday afternoon visited the blast site and spoke to the local police. The officers also collected samples from the station. On Tuesday, the Union home ministry ordered the NIA to probe the blast.

Hossain was supposed to board the Kolkata-bound Teesta Torsa Express from platform no 2 when the bomb, which was kept in a bag that was lying on the platform, went off.

This is the second blast that the NIA is investigating in Bengal. The agency probed the 2018 bomb blast in a rented house at Khagragarh in East Burdwan district. Two operatives of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), who were making bombs inside the house, were killed. The probe exposed a big terror network in India and led to more than 30 arrests including that of Kausar who founded the third unit of the JMB in India.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the state police is already probing the Nimtita blast. The CID has so far arrested two suspects, Abu Samad and Saidul Islam, who are now police custody.

A CID officer, who did not want to be identified, claimed that during interrogation Saidul, who is an expert in making crude bombs, has admitted that he kept the bomb at Nimtita station to settle an old score with the minister.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, another state police officer associated with the probe told HT on February 21 that examination of the remains of the exploded bomb clearly indicated that it was a socket bomb of high quality.

“We have doubts if common criminals in Murshidabad have the expertise. Some of us suspect the involvement of JMB as its operatives are experts in making bombs of this kind,” the officer had said.

The NIA team that visited Nimtita did not speak to the media. However, a local police officer who interacted with the team said the NIA has not ruled out the possibility of the JMB’s involvement.

A section of state police officers suspect that JMB operatives might have brought the bomb to the station to carry out a big terror attack, possibly an explosion in a packed passenger train.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee entrusted three state agencies, including the CID, with the investigation while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress demanded probe by Central agencies.

Murshidabad, where Muslims comprise 66.28% of the population, the state’s highest, shares border with Bangladesh.

On February 10, a special NIA court in Kolkata handed a 29-year jail sentence to Kausar for his role in the Khagragarh blast. Kausar, 31, who was arrested by the NIA from a guest house in Bengaluru in August 2018, is also an accused in the 2018 Bodhgaya blast.

The NIA and the Special Task Force (STF) of the state police have nabbed several JMB militants from Murshidabad district in recent years. The NIA has also nabbed several Al Qaeda suspects from the district.