BENGALURU: The city is emerging as a safe haven for cadres of proscribed terror organisations from Bangladesh — the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT).
A team of National Investigation Agency (NIA) officers from Kolkata on Friday landed in Bengaluru and seized one digital video recorder (DVR) of an ABT cadre — Mahmood Hassan — from a paying guest accommodation in Soladevanahalli, where he was staying before he was arrested by the NIA in Guwahati.
The ABT has reportedly been involved in brutal killings of liberal thinkers and bloggers in Bangladesh between 2013 and 2015. According to sources, ABT has allegedly been making attempts to hire and indoctrinate tech-savvy youth from Bengaluru. The terrorist outfit has a strong online presence. The NIA has arrested five JMB cadres from Bengaluru and its suburbs, who were reportedly involved in 2014
Burdwan blast. The accused have been remanded in police custody.
According to official sources, the NIA carried out “pointing out” exercises with the accused regarding their hideouts, outreach and modus operandi in Karnataka, said an official source.