West Bengal BJP chief and Rajya Sabha MP Shamik Bhattacharya has sharply criticised the Mamata Banerjee government after the recent arrest of terror suspects with alleged links to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
He said this was not the first time such arrests had happened in the state and claimed that "a silent invasion of demography" was taking place through Bengal, which was putting national security at risk.
"This is not the first time. Before that ISIS terrorists were arrested from Bengal. BJP is the only party which is continuously saying a silent invasion of demography has been going on in our country through Bengal. Because of which the national security is being compromised. Demography in the bordering districts have been compromised. They are using Bengal as a land for demographic changes in the country. It is a threat of the internal security of the country," Bhattacharya said.
The political tensions intensified after the Delhi Police's Special Cell foiled what it called a major terror plot during a 10-day operation. Officers busted a terror module linked to LeT and arrested eight suspects, seven of them Bangladeshi nationals. The operations were carried out in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
The first arrests were made in Malda, West Bengal, where police detained two suspects identified as Umar Farooq and Robil ul Islam. Content found in their mobile phones led investigators to more suspects hiding in Tamil Nadu's Tiruppur district.
In total, eight suspects were held. Six of them, Mizanur Rahman, Mohammed Shabat, Umar, Mohammed Litan, Mohammed Shahid, and Mohammed Ujjal, were arrested from garment factories in Tiruppur. Police sources said all of them had been working in garment units using fake Aadhaar cards. Eight mobile phones and 16 SIM cards were recovered.
Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari also attacked the state government, claiming that Bengal had become a "hub of militants."
He said, "Kashmir Special Task Force (STF) arrested Javed Munshi two years ago, one was arrested by Assam STF from Murshidabad. Trinamool Congress (TMC) has made Bengal a hub of militants, it has to be uprooted. All nationalist people will uproot it."
The arrests also came days after posters with slogans like "Free Kashmir" and "Stop Genocide in Kashmir" were found at several metro stations in Delhi and Kolkata on February 7-8. This led to an alert in security agencies, and the Delhi Police's Special Cell was asked to investigate.
Meanwhile, TMC leader Kunal Ghosh responded by saying that matters involving interstate or international links were entirely under the jurisdiction of central intelligence and investigative agencies.
"This is entirely a subject of the Central Government. It is not a matter for the State Police, the State administration, or any local police station. If there is any connection with another state or any international link, then there are central intelligence and investigative agencies to handle that. If it is about cross-border issues, then border security and related matters are handled by central agencies," he said.
