The arrest of 10 suspected terrorists across West Bengal in the past two weeks has triggered a major war of words between the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. While nine people were arrested within the state, one was arrested from Kasargod in Kerala in a joint operation by the Special Task Force of West Bengal Police and their Kerala counterparts.
The arrest followed the recent arrests of eight suspected members of terrorist outfit Ansar-al-Islam Bangladesh, who were planning to target the “Chicken’s Neck” connecting West Bengal’s Siliguri with the north-eastern states. The eight accused were allegedly running a sleeper cell across Kerala, Assam, and West Bengal.
“The objective of the sleeper cell was to recruit the local youth to engage in terrorist activities. They aimed to make the Chicken’s Neck an active site of their activities,” Supratim Sarkar, Additional Director General of Police (ADG), South Bengal, said.
Two of the arrested were from Murshidabad district and part of a group of eight people apprehended by Bengal, Kerala and Assam police teams.
The back-to-back arrests have raised a question mark over the security apparatus of Bengal, with the BJP questioning the “safe sanctuary” to terror modules under the watch of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The arrests also revealed the ease with which terror networks can procure Indian documents.
“First these elements cross over from Bangladesh and are given recognition by the panchayats which are run by the TMC and get ration cards issued in their names. Then they use these to get voter ID cards and passports. There is a nexus between the TMC, the police and the post office workers who run the passport service centres. So, there is no verification at any stage because this helps the TMC electorally,” said BJP Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya who was earlier the MP from Basirhat which borders Bangladesh.
Javed Munshi, suspected to be a member of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Mujahideen outfit in the Kashmir Valley, was picked up from near Canning Hospital in South 24-Parganas district by a joint team of Jammu and Kashmir Police and Bengal Police, sources said.
Javed, who claimed to have visited the residence of a relative in Canning town for personal reasons, had been allegedly involved in subversive activities in the Valley and was wanted by the Jammu and Kashmir Police for a long time.
The sources said Munshi was a known IED expert and weapons handler and has been linked to several terror activities, including the suspected involvement in the 2011 murder of Shauqat Shah, a prominent Ahl-i-Hadith leader. He has served several jail terms on charges related to terrorism.
In his initial interrogation, Munshi confessed to travelling to Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan multiple times, allegedly under the direction of his handlers, using counterfeit passports.
Munshi’s arrest follows the recent detention of two alleged terror operatives of the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a Bangladeshi terrorist group, in Murshidabad. The suspects were rounded up during a joint operation with the Assam Police. They have been identified as Minarul Sheikh and Muhammad Abbas Ali. Eight alleged ABT operatives were also detained as part of the broader operation.
According to West Bengal Police, ABT is a splinter group of Bangladesh-based terrorist organisation Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and is banned in India, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom and the United states.
Md Sad Radi, who was held in Kasargod, was arrested after a joint team of Assam Police and West Bengal Police conducted pan-India raids. Radi is the mastermind of a sleeper cell and owes allegiance to Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), an affiliate of Al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent.
Senior officials who are part of the STF team say that the probe so far has revealed that Radi got forged documents, which included an Aadhaar card and a voter ID. Apart from this, he was also found in possession of a fake passport. The forged documents point to the local support that Radi enjoyed and is one of the aspects the police are looking into.
The developments have triggered a blame-game between the TMC Congress and the BJP over law and order in the state and border infiltration from Bangladesh.
Kolkata mayor and senior TMC Congress leader Firhad Hakim emphasised the proactive efforts of the police under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s leadership and the “zero tolerance” for extremism. “It is the Union Home Ministry’s responsibility to strengthen the Border Security Force and prevent trespassing,” Hakim stated, shifting accountability to the Central Government. Firhad Hakim emphasised that the arrests had been carried out by the West Bengal Police under Banerjee’s leadership.
State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said the Union Government was prepared to take full responsibility for the border with Bangladesh on the condition that the necessary land for the construction of border fences is allocated by the state Government.
His colleague and the party’s co-minder in West Bengal, Amit Malviya, meanwhile, claimed that the detained ABT members possessed voter ID cards from two different constituencies—Kandi and Hariharpara in Murshidabad. “This incident is just the tip of the iceberg. Illegal infiltrators obtaining voting rights have become a significant part of the TMC’s voter base, enabling their continued grip on power,” Malviya posted on X.
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said: “The presence of members of the terror module is nothing new to Bengal. Terrorist outfits used Bengal as a safe haven during the three decades of the Left Front regime. There were blasts at Lalbazar and attacks at the American consulate in Kolkata. This trend has reversed since the TMC came to office.”
He added: “The Union Home Ministry has said in Parliament that terrorists are active in 14 states, many of them governed by BJP. If there is any cross-border infiltration, it is the Centre’s job to stop that. The BSF should be alert.”
The arrests and the ensuing trading of charges coincide with heightened political tensions in Bengal, driven by developments in neighbouring Bangladesh. The attacks on Hindu minorities in Bangladesh have prompted the BJP and Hindutva organisations to stage widespread protests across the state.
Bengal has historically been highly watched by security agencies due to its proximity to Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Over the years, several terror modules operating in the region have been dismantled, exposing networks linked to extremist groups such as the ABT, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and other cross-border organisations. One of the most notable incidents was the Burdwan blast in 2014—an accidental explosion inside a house uncovering a massive terror network. Investigations revealed that the house was being used as a bomb-making unit by JMB operatives, with plans to strike in India and Bangladesh.
Since then, Bengal has seen numerous arrests related to terror activities. In 2019, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) unearthed another JMB module in Murshidabad, leading to multiple arrests and the recovery of explosives, weapons and jihadi literature. In 2021, suspected members of Al-Qaeda were arrested from Murshidabad and Malda.
“We received information that the Ansarul Bangla team was trying to set up sleeper cells in the country to recruit youth and procure arms,” Gaurav Sharma, Inspector General (IG) of the West Bengal STF, said. “They were trying to identify youngsters using communal fissures and economic disparities and from there, they were trying to pick up the youth who were useful for their ideology.”
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, counter-terrorism expert Dipanjan Chakraborty said: “The discovery of sleeper cells and use of local networks to radicalise individuals highlight the need for sustained vigilance. Despite successful busts by Central and state agencies, challenges such as porous borders, fake documentation and logistical support systems within the region continue to pose significant hurdles in combating terror.”