Special NIA court sentences two more accused in Khagragarh blast case to seven years of imprisonment

The court on Tuesday sentenced Mustafizzur Rehman (aka Saqib and Tuhin) who was arrested on December 26 in 2018, and Kadar Kazi (aka Kador), who was arrested on January 28, 2019, to seven years in prison and slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 on each of the two.

Rehman is convicted under the Sections 120B, 125, of the IPC and Sections 18, 18A, 18B, 19 and 20 of the UA (P) Act and Kazi was found guilty under Sections 120B and 125 of the IPC and Sections 18 and 20 of the UA (P) Act.

The National Investigation Agency, which began investigating immediately after the blast at Khagragarh, Burdwan in October 2014 that killed two, has so far convicted 30 people.
All of them, the agency said, were involved in recruitment for and training of JMB modules in India and were also hatching a plan to wage war against the government in Bangladesh.

The accidental blast at the house in Khagragarh, in which links of terror group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) were found, killed two suspected terrorists and injured a third while they were making bombs.

The NIA filed the primary charge sheet in the case in March, 2015, in which it said there was a "conspiracy of JMB, a proscribed terrorist organisation in Bangladesh, to overthrow the existing democratic government in Bangladesh through violent terrorist acts".

The investigation into the case was first taken up by the West Bengal CID and was transferred to the NIA within a few days.

The investigation by NIA revealed a conspiracy by JMB to radicalize, recruit and provide training in arms and explosives to its members in India to commit terrorist acts and wage war against the democratically established Governments of India and Bangladesh.

Large number of IEDs, explosives, hand grenades and training videos were reportedly recovered during the investigation.