KOLKATA: Union home minister Amit Shah held a meeting with NIA officials at a city hotel on Saturday morning over the progress of investigations into terror modules in Bengal. He asked the NIA to trace the network of cross-border terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and al Qaida.
During the meeting with DIG Deepak Kumar with other NIA officials, Shah sought details of recent cases. In September, the NIA had busted a module of LeT operating from Baduria, North 24 Parganas. In November, the agency busted a “Pakistan-sponsored-module” of al Qaida. This led investigators to unearth a pan-Indian network the organisation had set up.
Shah, sources said, also wanted to know about involvement of radical Islamic group Popular Front of India (PFI) in the recent developments. He asked NIA officials to keep tabs on the movement of PFI members in the state.
Earlier this month, the Enforcement Directorate had conducted nationwide searches on the premises of PFI — an organization with alleged links to the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in the past. Its offices in Murshidabad and Kolkata were searched. While several states have asked the home ministry to ban PFI, it has not taken any decision yet.
After the NIA meeting, Shah visited Swami Vivekananda’s birthplace in central Kolkata. “Swami Vivekananda connected spirituality with modernity. I pray that we are able to walk the path he showed us,” the minister said in his tribute.
In East Midnapore, Shah had lunch at a farmer’s residence in Balijuri village before he addressed a rally that is part of the BJP’s outreach programme among peasants. Along with BJP’s Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya and state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, Shah reached the thatched house of Sanatan Singh. “He (Shah) had rice and dal along with vegetables,” the farmer said.
In the evening, the minister met the party’s state functionaries along with the newly inducted members at a hotel in New Town.