Mustaque being taken to Jangipur court on Wednesday. Picture by Surajit Roy

Calcutta/Murshidabad, July 30: Mohammad Mustaque, a Lashkar-e-Toiba operative arrested from Murshidabad yesterday, was appointed to open a camp at Gopalnagar village in the district to motivate local youths to join the terrorist outfit.

The fact came to light after the officials of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) interrogated Mustaque. The garments trader and his associate Nazrul alias Hasanuzzaman were picked up on the charges of providing refuge to Sikandar Azam, a LeT militant for a month in their houses.

Sikandar left the city a few days ago and was arrested as soon as he got down at Jammu railway station.

With instructions from Sikandar and another LeT militant Mohammad Safique who was appointed to operate in Bangladesh on behalf of the outfit, Mustaque opened a religious organisation—Al-e-Hadis.

“It is a frontal organisation which was formed a couple of months ago with an aim to engage local youths. LeT leaders would often visit the place and take classes for local people to motivate them to join the organisation,” said S.N. Gupta, special inspector general of police(operations), CID.

An officer of CID’s special operations group said during a visit to Biratnagar in Nepal last week, Mustaque met Safique.

“Safique told him that he would be given a sealed box which he would have to hand over to a person who would come to meet him in his house. The Bangladesh based leader also said he would give him details about the box later.”

The officers said they believed that the box would have been stashed with explosives.

Mustaque confessed that Safique was staying at his house when Jammu police arrested Sikandar.

“But he left Murshidabad the next day and went to Bangladesh,” Mustaque told investigators.

Gupta said that Jammu police contacted the CID and said that they would send a team soon to take Mustaque in their custody.

Mustaque was produced in the court of additional chief judicial magistrate Jangipur remanded in police custody till August 10.