ISIS had plans to attack Kolkata's Mother House: NIA

In a charge sheet, recently submitted in a city court, NIA mentioned that during interrogation arrested IS suspect Md. Masiruddin alias Mussa, who was nabbed from Burdwan in July earlier, confessed that they planned to carry out a suicide attack at Mother House to kill maximum number of people, coming from US, Europe and Russia.

"Mother House became a target of the ISIS as a large number of foreigners visit the building all the year round and Mussa told us that the chief recruiter of ISIS in India, Shafi Armar, was informed about the master-plan," a senior official of NIA told IBNS.

"Actually Americans, British citizens and Russians, whose countries are carrying out air strikes against ISIS and ISIL in Syria and Libya, were the primary target of the terrorists," the official added.  

The officer further said that ISIS and Bangladesh-based militant group Jamaat Ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) have also targeted few important and busy railway stations in and around Kolkata to carry out deadly terror attacks.

Mussa, whose direct link with JMB was also revealed, was earlier interrogated by United States' domestic Intelligence and security service, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Bangladesh's intelligence agency- Rapid Action Bangladesh (RAB).

However, following the information, the Kolkata Police have beefed up security at Mother House and the important railway stations in the city limits, an official said.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)