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Journalism of Courage
Even as Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday termed as exaggerated the reports calling Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant Belal Mandol,who was arrested in Bangladesh,the mastermind of IC-814 hijacking,the Indian government is reasonably sure of Mandols involvement in several bomb blasts in India,including the ones in Surat and Bangalore. It is now rushing a team of officials drawn from various intelligence and security agencies to question Mandol.
Belal is a Bangladeshi married to an Indian. His wife is from West Bengal, sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said. He is wanted in India for many incidents,including the 2008 Surat blasts. If there are no cases against him in Bangladesh,he will be handed over to India, sources said adding that it was not yet fully ascertained whether Mandol had any role in the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in 1999.
The team from India will primarily seek access to Mandol,who was arrested on February 28 along with four operatives of the Pakistan-based JeM. These included its Pakistani coordinator in Bangladesh who was also a recruiter for operations in India.
Mohammad Kamaruzzaman,Assistant Director of the Rapid Action Battalion of Bangladesh,said of the five JeM activists,one was a Pakistani national while the rest were Bangladeshi citizens. The JeM,founded by Maulana Masood Azhar,was responsible for the December 13,2001 terrorist attack on Parliament. The terror group was launched in January,2000 after the Kandahar hijack.
