The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday submitted a charge sheet against two Bangladeshi nationals in a Mizoram special court, alleging they had entered India with the intention of carrying out terrorist acts and had surveyed several cities including those in Bangalore to carry out their act.
The charge sheet submitted at NIA special court in Mizoram’s capital Aizawl states that Mahmud Hassan (25) and Mohamad Sa’ad Hussain (31) are members of Ansar-al-Islam, a banned terrorist outfit in Bangladesh.
The duo were arrested in July 2019 in Mamit district of Mizoram where they were moving around suspiciously and couldn’t provide valid identity documents or the purpose of their presence in the area. The case was handed over to NIA in September the same year.
During the investigation, it was established that Hassan, a resident of Narsingdi district of Bangladesh and Hussain, from Magura district of the neighbouring country, entered India illegally in November 2018 through the international boundary in Tripura.
The charge sheet states both the accused were in possession of fake Aadhaar cards provided by their handlers in Bangladesh. From Tripura, they went to Bangalore where they spent the next 8-9 months and conducted a recce of several public places in the city.
It further states that both accused tried to procure weapons from various places in Tripura and Mizoram in order to carry out terrorist acts on the instructions of their handlers in Bangladesh.
The arrests come during a fierce political debate in the country over the Citizenship Amendment Act, which aims to expedite citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Widespread protests have been held alleging the act discriminates against Muslims, while some advocates of the amended act have cited terror export from neighbouring countries to justify the exclusion of Muslims from the legislation’s purview.