Kolkata, Aug 3 (IANS) A district court in West Bengal on Monday evening remanded Aditya Singh a.k.a. Raj, the second aide of Hamim Mondal, a suspected Jaish‑e‑Mohammed (JeM) associate, to 11 days of custody of the Special Task Force (STF) of the West Bengal Police.
Mondal was arrested by STF sleuths on July 31 morning from Burdwan in East Burdwan district, while Singh was arrested on Monday morning from his residence at Belilious Road in Kolkata-adjacent Howrah district.
In between, STF sleuths also arrested Hamim’s female associate, Arpita Sarkar, from Sahibganj in neighbouring Jharkhand on the night of July 31.
Both Mondal and Sarkar were close associates of Shahzad Bhatti Network (SBN), a Pakistan-based terrorist-criminal group.
Singh, a student, was instrumental in supplying Mondal with crucial information about Umesh Rai and his family members, who were targets of the SBN for honey-trapping, blackmailing and, if necessary, abduction followed by ransom demands.
Umesh Rai is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator from Howrah-Uttar Assembly constituency in Howrah district and also a Minister of State in Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari-led state cabinet.
On Monday, sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) also questioned Mondal and Sarkar considering the seriousness of the charges against them. It is learnt that the NIA sleuths will also interrogate Singh in STF custody on Tuesday.
State police insiders said the information about Umesh Rai and his family members supplied by Aditya to Hamim was not sent directly but through end-to-end encrypted apps like Telegram.
According to the state police, such secure platforms were chosen to avoid intelligence surveillance. Analysis of digital data recovered from Hamim’s mobile has revealed several foreign mobile numbers and multiple online identities.
Based on that source, possible contact with multiple handlers based in Pakistan is being investigated.
One of the most important aspects of the investigation has been the honey-trapping angle. State police claim that a plan was hatched to target the family members of Rai. Now the investigation is on about Aditya’s role in this plot.
–IANS
src/dan
