Bhopal terror funding case: 2 locations in UP searched by NIA

NEW DELHI: The NIA has conducted searches at two locations in Uttar Pradesh in the Bhopal terror funding case involving the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), the federal agency said on Thursday.

The searches were aimed at exposing further links and conspiracies of the 10 people arrested and charge-sheeted in the case by the NIA court in Bhopal.

Six of the arrested people are Bangladeshi nationals and active JMB members, who had entered India illegally without any valid documents. They had acquired false and forged Indian identity documents with the help of JMB sympathisers.

The searches were conducted on Wednesday at the premises of various suspects and it led to the seizure of several digital devices such as mobile phones, and SIM cards, bank passbooks and identity documents, a spokesperson of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said.

The documents, which are being examined, relate to ''suspect transactions related to transfer of funds by the accused'', the official said.

The NIA claimed that the 10 arrested accused were involved in influencing, radicalising and motivating vulnerable Indian Muslim youngsters to take up violent ''Jihad'' against the democratic system of governance in the country.

They had been circulating incriminating ''Jihadi'' literature, inflammatory videos and statements as well as endorsing, justifying and glorifying the acts of various banned terrorist organisations, including the JMB, the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the spokesperson alleged.

The accused were conspiring to align with terrorist organisations to achieve their ultimate goal of establishing Shariat-based Islamic rule in India through pursuit of ''violent Jihad'', the official said. They had grand plans of creating a pan-India network to pursue their objective and, along with their co-accused, had successfully established bases in various states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Tripura, West Bengal and Assam, the agency said.

The case was taken over by the NIA after it was originally registered last year by the Madhya Pradesh Police's Special Task Force at Bhopal. The state police had arrested six active members of the JMB from their rented accommodations in Bhopal. ''Jihadi'' literature, digital devices, printer, paper cutting machine, book binding material were also seized then. Given the ramifications of the case and developments for national security, the NIA had subsequently taken over the investigations and arrested four more accused, the spokesperson said.