Terror outfits using Bengal as transit point: Report

Bengal, with its porous borders, has turned into an easy transit point for terrorists belonging to Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Pakistani secret service ISI, say reports.

"West Bengal's border is porous and this was used by militant groups to get an entry into the country and spread to other states. This is nothing new. The state has become a safe and secure shelter for them," a top CID officer said.

Militant outfits like JMB, IS, and ISI operatives are recruiting agents and training them, he added.

A special task force of Kolkata Police had arrested six top JMB militants, including four wanted, in connection with the 2014 Khagragarh blast case, from Bengal and Assam in September.

"Taking advantage of the unemployment situation, the agents have been recruiting people with ease. These groups also have recruitment cells which look for possible youths either studying in senior schools or looking for job as their possible targets," the CID official said, adding social networking sites have played crucial roles in this connection.

"Now one can scan through anybody's profile sitting thousands of kilometres away in another country to choose a possible candidate. Then the message goes to the outfit's local agent to do the needful to get the person under its umbrella," he said. The officer cited the arrest of a 18-year-old student of a privatpolytechnicue college in Durgapur in Burdwan district, Ashik Ahmed, by NIA for his links to the ISIS in March.

Ashik, who was trying to build an unit of ISIS in West Bengal, was the second youth to be arrested from the state after Mehdi Masroor Biswas, for his links to the Pakistani agency.

A senior officer of Kolkata Police said that the state's strategic location along the international border and the slack security arrangement at a few places have made such incidents possible through the last decade or more.

In December last year Kolkata Police STF had arrested one labourer, a couple of passport agents, a college student and a bartender for alleged links with ISI. The arrest of the bartender from the central part of the city had revealed that a network of ISI agents were working in the state, he added.

--PTI