NIA seeks 8 days custody of arrested Myanmarese national

KOLKATA: The NIA today produced Myanmarese national Khalid Mohammad, one of the prime accused in the Burdwan blast case, before a city court and sought eight days of police remand along with two other accused who were arrested earlier.

All the eight accused arrested in connection with the Burdwan blast were produced before Md Mumtaz Khan, chief judicial magistrate of Bankshall court, by NIA which is investigating the case.

NIA counsel Shyamal Ghosh prayed for the custody of Khalid, who was arrested at Hyderabad on November 17, saying he was directly involved in the case.

Ghosh stated that Khalid was a trained IED expert and had links with Bangladesh-based terrorist groups.

It was also submitted that he ran terror camps in bordering areas of Bangladesh and Myanmar as also in West Bengal.

The counsel prayed for extension of police custody of Sk Rahmatullah and Amjad Sheikh for eight days claiming that they needed to be questioned further in connection with chemicals bought by Amjad, who worked for a pharmaceutical company here and procured vital components for making IEDs at Burdwan by Bangladeshi terrorists at a house in Khagragarh.

An accidental blast there on October 2 which killed two persons brought to the fore the activities of jihadi elements from Bangladesh.

Ghosh submitted that an NIA team which visited Bangladesh has returned and the information received by them have to be verified by interrogating the two.

The agency prayed for judicial remand of five others who were produced before the court. They are Rajiya, Hashem Mollah, Jia Ul Haq, Alima and Sk Rahmatulla.