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Sleeper cell operative allegedly involved in 2013 Bodh Gaya blasts arrested from Bengal
Besides being a sleeper cell member, the arrested person was involved in supplying explosives to the masterminds of the Bodh Gaya blast, the police say.
A 57-year-old man, suspected to be a member of a sleeper cell involved in the low-intensity blasts in Bodh Gaya in 2013, was arrested by the special task force of Kolkata Police on Monday from West Bengal’s Hooghly district, officials said.
Hajibullah, a resident of Samsherganj in Murshidabad district, was nabbed from the ticket counter at Bandel railway station by the special task force.
“Besides being a sleeper cell member, the arrested person (Hajibullah) was involved in supplying explosives to the masterminds of the Bodh Gaya blast. He will be produced at a city court on Monday,” an official of the task force, who did not wish to be named, said.
Task force officers said interrogations of Hajibullah could lead to further information on links to the Bodh Gaya blasts. They are also focussing on Hajibullah’s links with different terror groups.
The series of nine blasts in and around the Mahabodhi temple complex in Bodh Gaya, a UNESCO World Heritage site, injured five people, including two Buddhist monks, on July 7, 2013.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which took up the investigation into the blasts, said in November 2013 that terror group Indian Mujahideen was responsible for the explosions.
A special court of the agency in Patna announced life imprisonment for five prime accused behind the blasts on May 25, 2018.
A sixth accused - Taufiq Ahmed - was less than 18 years of age and sentenced to three years in remand home by a juvenile court last year.
