Kolkata: The West Bengal Special Task Force (STF) on Monday arrested a suspected associate of alleged Jaish-e-Mohammed operative Hamim Mondal from Howrah in connection with an ongoing probe into an alleged espionage network, a senior officer said.
The accused, identified as Aditya Singh alias Raj alias Raju, was apprehended from Belilious Road following leads obtained during the interrogation of Mondal and his alleged associate, Arpita Sarkar, he said.
"The arrest was made on the basis of specific leads that emerged during the investigation. We are now focused on identifying others linked to the alleged network," a senior STF officer said, without divulging further details.
Investigators suspect Aditya came in contact with Mondal through an online gaming platform and was subsequently drawn into the alleged conspiracy.
"He is suspected to have collected information related to Minister of State for Urban Development Umesh Rai and his son and shared it with the accused," the STF official said.
On July 31, the STF made the first arrest in the case after apprehending a JeM operative from Purba Bardhaman district. According to the probe team, the accused identified as Mohammed Hamim Mondal had planned to target Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and carry out sabotage at the recent students' protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi by impersonating a police man. The same night, the STF arrested Arpita Sarkar, alleged to be Mondal's associate and "girlfriend", and claimed that the duo had conspired to honey-trap the son of a minister of state in West Bengal to abduct him and extort money from the family.
A senior STF officer said the conspiracy was orchestrated at the behest of Pakistan-based handlers linked to the Shahzad Bhatti gang.
"Our investigation has revealed a specific plan to lure the minister's son into a honey-trap, followed by kidnapping and blackmail. The conspiracy was directed by Pakistan-based handlers. We are probing the precise role of each accused and whether others were involved," the officer said.
The STF claimed Sarkar and Mondal had planned to cultivate personal relationships with influential persons to extract sensitive information on the instructions of their cross-border handlers.
Bengal STF sleuths also claimed to have recovered international SIM cards issued in the United Kingdom and Mexico from the accused.