Following the arrest of a Pakistani Lashkar-e-Toiba militant, Sikandar Azam, from Jammu, two of his facilitators were arrested from Raghunathgunj of Murshidabad district of West Bengal on 29th July’08.
With a cue from Jammu Police, the Special Operations Group sleuth from Calcutta cordoned off a cloth shop at Raghunathgunj market and arrested a garment dealer Mohammad Mustaque, 30. Police found a pen drive and a laptop- said to be containing video footage of the Lashkar Training Camps- from his house in nearby Gopal Nagar.
Mohammad Nazrul, 23, a schoolteacher and another accomplish of the Laskar, was also arrested from his house in the same village. Sleuths said Mustaque has admitted that he allowed Azam, who came via Bangladesh, to stay in his house for a month. Lashkar has apparently paid Rs.200000 ($5000) to Mustaque and Nazrul for providing Azam with logistic support.
As per police sources, Azam left Bengal a fortnight ago for Jammu with a break of couple of days at Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh Capital. After the exit of Azam from Bengal, Mustaque left for Biratnagar of Nepal and met Mohammad Safique, a Lashkar man operating from Bangladesh.
CID Special IG of Bengal Siddhi Nath Gupta said, “With the guidance of Sikandar Azam and Mohammad Safique, Mustaque has opened an organization called Al-e-Hadis about two months ago to recruit youths from Raghunathgunj area. He also started a camp in the area and Nazrul used to help him run the camp. Lashkar leaders would often visit the area and attend the classes with local people to motivate them to join the organization”.
Gupta further said that the Jammu police would soon take the duo in their custody. Both Mustaque and Nazrul were both remanded to jail custody for 14 days by the Magistrate.