2 bombs found in drain after JMB operative's arrest

Hours after a Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operative was arrested, the National Investigation Agency and Intelligence Bureau Wednesday found two 'live' bombs hidden in a stormwater drain in Ramanagar district, officials said.

The NIA had on Tuesday arrested Habibur Rehman Sheikh (28) alias Habibur or Sheikh, wanted in the 2014 Burdwan blast case, from Doddaballapura in Bengaluru rural district.

Based on information provided by Sheikh during interrogation, the two agencies in association with local police searched and found the bombs concealed in a stormwater drain at Tipunagar in Ramanagar district, police said.

A bomb disposal squad accompanied them, police said, adding that the bombs have been defused.

Officials suspect that it was meant to carry out terror activities in Bengaluru as well.

The arrested ultra was named in the chargesheet filed by the NIA in the Burdwan bomb blast case in March, 2015 "for his direct involvement in the conspiracy of JMB to wage war against governments of India and Bangladesh", an NIA official said.

He was a close associate of senior JMB leader Jahidul Islam alias Kausar and was associated with other JMB leaders like Rahamatullah Sheikh and Moulana Yusuf, the official said.

Sheikh was an active member of JMB's Bolpur module in West Bengal and had attended a number of training camps conducted by the terror group, the official alleged.

He was produced on Tuesday before a special NIA court inBengaluru which granted the agency five-day transit remand forfurther production before a court in Kolkata.

Two persons were killed and another was injured in a bomb explosion at a house in the Khagragarh locality of Burdwan on October 2, 2014.

The outfit was banned by the Bangladesh government in 2005, while India outlawed it this year in May.