NSA Ajit Doval to visit Burdwan blast site; to discuss Bangladesh-Bengal trans-border crime

Doval’s visit comes just three days after NIA Director General Sharad Kumar visited Burdwan. It also comes ahead of the Union government’s decision to send a report to Bangladesh following a request from that country in this regard.

The visit, sources said, is aimed at delivering a message to Mamata Banerjee government that the Centre was giving top most priority and importance to investigations into the blast at Khagragarh. Both Mamata and her party, Trinamool Congress, had raised objections when the Centre had suo motu handed over the probe into the blast to the NIA.

After arriving in Kolkata, Doval would take a helicopter to the blast site in Burdwan where he would also visit the shelters of the accused and other places from where NIA made seizures of explosives and other articles.

Later in the day, he will meet Mamata and other state government officials, including chief secretary Sanjay Mitra, Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee and DGP G M P Reddy, at the state secretariat.

Top police sources said Doval, apart from seeking state government’s cooperation in solving the case, will also discuss steps needed to check trans-border crime between Bengal and Bangladesh. In the meeting, the NIA officials would brief Mamata about the progress made by the agency. Significantly, in a recent public meeting, the chief minister had claimed that the central agencies like NIA were not consulting the state government.

The NIA had on Friday said that those killed as well as the arrested persons and their associates were members of terror group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, who were making IEDs to be transported to the neighbouring country for possible terror attacks.

Three persons, including two women — one of them the widow of a suspected terrorist who died in the blast —  have been arrested and interrogated by the NIA.