Kerala: Burdwan Blast Case Accused Arrested In Malappuram, Worked As Imam In Local Mosque 

In a joint operation which was conducted by West Bengal and Kerala Police, the accused in the 2014 Burdwan blast case in West Bengal, Abdul Matin was arrested from Edavanna in Malappuram district, Kerala on 30 January (Wednesday), as reported by Times of India.

According to the police, Abdul worked as an Imam of a local mosque in Edavanna near Manjeri and was taken into custody from the Manjeri-Edavanna border.

It was a joint operation conducted by Kerala police and West Bengal police based on valid information regarding the presence of the accused in the locality that led to the arrest of Abdul Matin from a house near a mosque," said Pratheesh Kumar.

It is to be noted that after the blast took place on 2 October, 2014, chief minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee had said that one would not know if the Centre itself used the RAW to plant the bomb. Her remarks caused great controversy. Mamata also expressed her displeasure at the NIA probe in the matter, calling it an interference by the centre in state’s affairs.

Abdul Matin is one of the main accused in the case in and the outfit Jama'at-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) to which Matin belongs to, is suspected to be behind the blast.

The blast occurred inside a building owned by Nurul Hasan Chowdhary, a Trinamool Congress leader, in the Khagragarh locality. After the police arrived, two women wielding guns prevented the police from entering and threatened a bigger blast, meanwhile destroying several documents and evidences.

More than 50 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), tools used to prepare them, large numbers of wrist watch dials, SIM cards, Micro SD cards containing propaganda songs, Taliban training videos were recovered. Fake Indian documents like elector's card and passport were found along with Maps and half burnt books in Arabic.