Date: 03.03.10
Source: The Daily Star

Star Report

A team of Indian security officials will visit Bangladesh to question a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) operative arrested in Dhaka recently.

Citing top government sources there, our New Delhi correspondent reports that the team will quiz 35-year-old Nannu Mia alias Belal Mandol alias Billal, who has admitted involvement in the hijack of an Indian Airlines plane in December 1999.

Billal was arrested on Sunday along with four other suspected JeM militants including a Pakistani national.

The Indian sources said he is wanted in connection with the blasts in Bangalore and Surat in 2008. They, however, have yet to be sure if he was complicit in the hijack.

Meanwhile in Dhaka, Rezwan Ahmed, the detained Pakistani, has told investigators that an intelligence agency in his country had trained him how to operate sophisticated weapons and improvised explosives and later sent him to Bangladesh.

Officials, who have been grilling Rezwan, said he has admitted to receiving funds from Pakistan, but has yet to divulge the identity of the fund providers.

"Rezwan's job was to ensure safe passage to India for local recruits and Pakistani militants assigned to stage terror attacks there," an interrogator told The Daily Star in return for anonymity.

Rezwan and his four local associates--Billal, Naser Munshi, Munna and Khoka--were taken to the Task Force for Interrogation cell on Sunday night.

Our Delhi correspondent adds: India hopes that Bangladesh will hand over Billal after finishing their own investigation.

Reacting to reports on arrests of the five suspected JeM operatives in Dhaka, Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna said his country “would get in touch with the government of Bangladesh and try to find out what the position is”.

About the arrestee [Billal] in question, he said if the person turns out to be the one wanted by the Indian police, the government will surely take the matter up with Bangladesh.

In December 1999, militants hijacked the Delhi-bound Indian Airlines plane (flight number-814) after it took off from Kathmandu. They forced the aircraft to land in Kandahar of the then Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

The Indian authorities had to release four terrorists including Jaish founder Moulana Masood Azhar in return for safe release of all the passengers.

Along with another militant group, Jaish is blamed for the attack on Indian parliament in Delhi in December 2001.

It is also suspected to have a role in the abduction and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi.

JeM's main objective is to detach Kashmir from India.

In primary interrogation with the Rapid Action Battalion and later talking to reporters at Rab headquarters, Billal admitted he had a role in the 1999 hijack.

He also said he had been jailed in India in a case filed for anti-state activities.

 

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