The Assam police has arrested three persons in Barpeta district and picked up another person from Chirang district for alleged connections with the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a Bangladesh-based militant outfit, police officials said on Wednesday. Robin Kumar, SP of Barpeta, told The Indian Express that police were keeping a close watch over the JMB activities since January. In February, Ariful Islam, a JMB operative, who hails from Barpeta, was arrested in West Bengal. “We received a specific input regarding sleeper cells of JMB. On the night of July 29, we made raids in Bhawanipur area of the district. We got success in arresting one JMB cadre named Haffizur Rehman and also seized one country-made revolver and 4 live rounds from him,” Kumar said. He added that during further raids two more JMB cadres Yakub Ali and Shoriful Rehman were arrested. “They have confessed that they were all trained. Their interrogation is being conducted and we are trying to ascertain where all the trainings took place,” he said, adding that since Independence Day was approaching the surveillance on the group’s sleeper cells were intensified which led to the raids and arrests. A police source in Chirang district said that one of the three arrested had told police that a certain person from Chirang had sold the revolver and hence he was picked up for questioning. SP of Barpeta, Kumar, confirmed the detention of the fourth person. Last year, multiple arrests were made in Assam’s Hojai district for alleged links with the militant outfit Hizbul Mujahedeen. Qamar uz Zaman, an alleged Hizbul Mujahideen militant from Assam, who was allegedly trained in Jammu and Kashmir and sent to the northeastern state for setting up a militant base, was arrested in September last year in Uttar Pradesh. The NIA is now investigating the case.
