The accused terrorist has been identified as Mohammad Nadeem…
On Monday afternoon the Border Security Force (BSF) received a tip-off that a house at Chapra in West Bengal’s Nadia district near the Indo-Bangladesh border housed smugglers. A BSF personnel acting on the tip-off arrived at the scene to witness large quantities of phensedyl, a cough syrup used as a stimulant stored in the said house.
AK Arya the deputy inspector general of the BSF’S south Bengal frontier on the case said, “When our team went there, they stumbled upon a few thousand bottles of phensedyl stacked in gunny bags and cartons. As the team were about to seize the consignment, they were attacked by at least 15–20 masked men. Most of them were carrying crude firearms. They opened fire to keep the BSF busy, while others in the group managed to flee with most of the bottles. One BSF jawan was injured”.
The Anti-Terrorist Squad of Uttar Pradesh arrested a man with alleged connections to the Jaish-e-Mohammed. The man was tasked to kill Nupur Sharma, the suspended BJP spokesperson, for her controversial comments on Prophet Mohammad. The arrest was made on Friday, as per the Uttar Pradesh police.
The police identified the accused as Mohammad Nadeem a 25-year-old man, who is a native of the Kunda Kala village under the jurisdiction limits of Gangoh Police station in the Saharanpur district. Uttar Pradesh’s Additional director general of police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar revealed the accused’s identity in a statement. The ADGP of police claimed that the recovered chats and voice messages from the accused’s phone were traced to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Also, two SIM cards and various literature on preparing various kinds of bombs were confiscated by the accused.
The police statement informed that Nadeem has been charged under the relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act at the ATS police station in Lucknow. Nadeem was allegedly planning to target a prominent leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the ATS also recovered an illegal firearm from the accused operative.
During interrogation Nadeem confessed that he was in direct touch with the JeM since 2018 and that the terrorist outfit had even invited him over to Pakistan and Syria to undergo special training, the statement said. The statement also revealed that Nadeem had been only waiting for a visa to travel to Syria for his further terror training.
West Bengal shares a 2,216 km stretch with Bangladesh of the 4096.7 km long Indo-Bangla border. The India-Bangladesh border stretch in Bengal is the longest and one of the most porous international borders in any state. Over the past few years, there has been an evident spike in cattle smuggling into Bangladesh through the border. In 2011 it was just 1611 to a massive number of 38,657 in 2018. Along with cattle smuggling of narcotics and psychotropic drugs is very popular across the Indo-Bengal border, the drugs include phensedyl and yaba tablets.
The smuggling has only reportedly risen as in 2018 BSF confiscated 1.39 Lakh bottles of phensedyl which rose to 2.68 Lakh in 2020. This year so far, the BSF has seized a total of 1.60 Lakh bottles. Similarly, the Yaba tablets have seen a rise as well, in 2018 1,362 tablets were seized and this year in just 7 months 7,000 tablets have been confiscated so far. The drugs are being smuggled in high numbers across the Bangladesh border.
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