The NIA team led by IG S.K. Singh arrives in Behrampore on Monday. Picture by Chayan Majumdar

Dec. 1: The National Investigation Agency today flew Sajid and Abdul Hakim, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh operatives arrested in the Burdwan blast case, to Murshidabad for a reconstruction of events leading up to the October 2 explosion.

An NIA team led by the agency’s IG, S K Singh, visited the pockets of Beldanga and Raghunathganj and questioned the two JMB operatives for about six hours.

Sources said the two were taken to Murshidabad because Sajid, the JMB’s alleged pointman in Bengal, had sneaked into the district from Bangladesh after crossing the Jalangi river sometime in March and had stayed in a madarsa near Lalgola for a few months. The officers said he used to frequent the bomb-assembling unit at Khagragarh from there.

Since taking over the blast probe, the NIA has for the first time attempted a reconstruction of the events. While Sajid was arrested from near Calcutta, according to the police, Hakim was injured at the Khagragarh flat where the “accidental” blast took place on October 2.

An NIA officer said: “Abdul Hakim has admitted to handing over improvised explosive devices to (blast suspect) Kodor Sheikh in the second week of September along with Shakil Ahmed, who died in the explosion.”

He added: “It’s important for us to identify all the places from where the JMB module collected raw materials for the explosives that were stored in the Khagragarh house. Since Sajid was the mastermind, he knows how everything worked.”

After flying them in a helicopter from Calcutta, the NIA team took Sajid and Hakim in two prison vans to Beldanga market, around 21km from Behrampore town.

The team questioned Sadik Mollah, owner of a local hardware shop, inside the van along with Hakim.

“The officers took me into the prison van and asked me if I had sold small iron pipes to the person sitting in front of me. I couldn’t recollect. Everyday, so many customers turn up at my shop. I don’t do any illegal business,” Sadik later said.

Hakim was questioned for over an hour before the team moved to Haatpara in Beldanga. For the next three hours, the team examined Sheikh Golam Ahmed, owner of a house which Nasirulla, one of the key aides of Shakil Ahmed, had rented. Nasirulla is absconding.

The NIA also took Saijd to a house in Raghunathganj which he had rented about six months before the blast in Burdwan. The team spoke to the landlord, Mehebul Sheikh, and questioned him along with Saijd in the prison van.

Arrests on both sides

Three persons have been arrested in Dhaka in connection with the Burdwan blast, PTI reported.

“They are members of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh,” a senior officer of Dhaka metropolitan police said.

In Burdwan, three young women allegedly hailing from Jessore in Bangladesh were arrested in connection with the blast. One of the women, the police said, had a Bangladeshi passport, an Aadhaar card with a Maharashtra address, a PAN and voter cards that had residential addresses in Bengal.