Suspected terrorist Javed Munshi, who is wanted in Jammu and Kashmir, had planned to sneak into Bangladesh through the Sunderbans, sources in the Bengal police said on Monday.
Munshi, who was arrested in Canning on Saturday night and is accused of multiple subversive activities in Jammu and Kashmir, was taken to Srinagar on transit remand on Monday. He has been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
Munshi had taken shelter in the house of a friend’s brother-in-law, who is a shawl seller by profession and had come from Kashmir to stay in Canning in South 24-Parganas several years ago.
“We had information that Javed Munshi was planning to flee to Bangladesh through waterways. He was trained in Pakistan in the late 1990s and is an expert in improvised explosives devices. He has been to Bangladesh before. His nexus with the terror groups in Bangladesh cannot be ruled out,” said an officer of the Bengal special task force.
Munshi’s arrest came within days of the arrest of two men in Murshidabad who were allegedly working at the behest of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, a banned terror outfit in Bangladesh.
A senior officer in the Bengal police said it was apparent that Munshi had a strong base in Bangladesh and ample logistic support there. “Else, he would not have planned to sneak into Bangladesh to escape arrest in India.”
The police said they would question the people who were in touch with Munshi and helped him during his stay in Canning.
Munshi, originally from Kashmir, had visited Calcutta several times and stayed on the fringes during the pandemic. The exact cause of his visit is not known, the police said.
“Maybe he came here to set up sleeper cells. He visited multiple countries,” said a deputy inspector general of police.