Author: Express news service
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: March 3, 2010
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Indian-team-to-question-Jaish-man-in-Dhaka-net/586059
Even as Union Home Minister P Chidambaram
on Tuesday termed as "exaggerated" the reports calling Jaish-e-Mohammed
(JeM) militant Belal Mandol, who was arrested in Bangladesh, the mastermind
of IC-814 hijacking, the Indian government is reasonably sure of Mandol's
involvement in several bomb blasts in India, including the ones in Surat and
Bangalore. It is now rushing a team of officials drawn from various intelligence
and security agencies to question Mandol.
"Belal is a Bangladeshi married to an
Indian. His wife is from West Bengal," sources in the Ministry of Home
Affairs (MHA) said. "He is wanted in India for many incidents, including
the 2008 Surat blasts. If there are no cases against him in Bangladesh, he
will be handed over to India," sources said adding that it was not yet
fully ascertained whether Mandol had any role in the hijacking of the Indian
Airlines plane to Kandahar in 1999.
The team from India will primarily seek access
to Mandol, who was arrested on February 28 along with four operatives of the
Pakistan-based JeM. These included its Pakistani coordinator in Bangladesh
who was also a recruiter for operations in India.
Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, Assistant Director
of the Rapid Action Battalion of Bangladesh, said of the five JeM activists,
one was a Pakistani national while the rest were Bangladeshi citizens. The
JeM, founded by Maulana Masood Azhar, was responsible for the December 13,
2001 terrorist attack on Parliament. The terror group was launched in January,
2000 after the Kandahar hijack.
