New Delhi, Oct. 9: The Burdwan district police chief had written about the terror links of the group involved in the October 2 blast in a report soon after, but the Bengal administration rolled it under the carpet.
An Intelligence Bureau official who has seen the report said: “It is really shocking that the state government and top police brass knew everything but kept it under wraps.”
The Bengal government did not initially invoke the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in spite of the serious observations in the report sent on October 3 to the state police top brass.
“The confidential report sent by the SP contained enough reasons for them to slap stringent charges against the accused persons,” said the official.
S.M.H. Meerza said in the report: “The deceased in the blast and other arrested persons are suspected to be part of subversive activities and had links with several fundamentalist groups, including Bangladesh’s Jamaat and terror outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen. They were experts in making bombs.”
The four-page preliminary report was sent to the Bengal DGP, G.M.P. Reddy, state intelligence branch DG Banibrata Basu and CID ADG Ramphal Pawar.
Banibrata Basu admitted receiving the SP’s report suggesting the suspected role of fundamentalist groups that could be part of a terror network.
“It is true that the SP had sent me a letter on October 3, a day after the incident mentioning the preliminary findings,” Basu said.
He refused to comment when asked why the police did not take it seriously.
“Who am I to decide?” he said.
Two people died in the blast and one was injured. The government did not invoke charges of terrorism and waging war against the nation until nearly a week since the incident and only after being goaded by the Centre.
Instead, it gave clearance to the local police to take the cache of home-made bombs — 59 improvised explosive devices and 55 hand grenades —in phases to the banks of the Damodar and detonate the devices. “It is very obvious that they were in a tearing hurry to destroy evidence for reasons only known to them,” the IB official said.
They did so after getting the green light from the Bengal DGP much before National Investigation Agency and IB officials showed up at the scene.
Referring to the SP’s report, another IB official said the Bengal government should have immediately informed the Centre and asked for NIA help in probing the case.
“Why did they make it a turf war between the state police and members of the NIA team which reached the spot on Friday. It was a serious issue concerning national security and the Bengal government should have immediately asked for an NIA probe and co-operation from central security agencies,” the official added.
The Bengal police are accused of not co-operating with the NIA team, and IB and RAW officials who reached the spot, arguing that they did not have instructions from their higher-ups.
In his report, Meerza also highlighted how Shakeel Ahmed, a Bangladeshi national who died in the explosion, had reached West Bengal in 2007 from across the border and lived in Murshidabad and later shifted to Burdwan about four months ago.
“A preliminary probe revealed that the explosives were meant for carrying out subversive activities and the consignment was to be sent to Bangladesh. A large number of jihadi literature, including a book in Bengali, Al Jihad, were found from the spot,” the IB official said quoting from the SP report.
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