Mohammed Ali Akbar, one of the three youths arrested, being produced in court. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Calcutta, June 25: The Bangladesh-based Harkatul Jehad al Islami (Huji) has been spreading its network across rural Bengal by picking up jobless youths, taking them across the border and training them, police said today.

The revelation came after the arrest of three youths — Mohammed Ali Akbar, Ajijur and Sheikh Moktar — from different parts of North and South 24-Parganas over the weekend for their alleged links with Jalaluddin alias Babubhai, the Huji commander who was arrested in Lucknow on Saturday.

Babubhai was picked up with an aide as they were walking beside a rickshaw carrying a cache of hand grenades.

The police believe that some of the explosives Babubhai had allegedly used in a series of recent strikes, including the March 2006 Varanasi blasts, were passed on to him from Bengal.

Babubhai, who hails from Joynagar in South 24-Parganas, was also a key player in the July 2001 kidnapping of Khadim’s co-owner Parthapratim Roy Burman, according to the police.

“We would not like to drop names of any outfit but the fact remains that some of these associates of Babubhai were trained abroad. We will hand them over to the special task force in Lucknow for interrogation,” Bhupinder Singh, the additional director general of police, CID, said.

The three were produced in court today and remanded in 10 days’ police custody.

In their late twenties and early thirties, the trio had been collecting funds for Babubhai and organising his stay in Calcutta before helping him slip out of the city with ammunition.

Southeast Asia links

The Centre has asked Interpol for information to uncover possible links between Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant group, and Huji.

Babubhai has apparently told his interrogators that he had met Islamiyah’s members from Malaysia, Philippines and South Africa at training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Kotli.