Woman from Bengal's Hooghly district arrested in Bangladesh for links with terror outfit
Kolkata: A unit of the Bangladesh Police has arrested an Indian woman, who ran away from West Bengal’s Hooghly district to the neighbouring country allegedly to join the banned terror outfit Neo-Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB).
The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) in Bangladesh arrested Ayesha Jannat Mohona in Dhaka Friday for her alleged involvement with the women’s wing of the terror outfit. It found out about her Indian connection during interrogation, said a Dhaka Tribune report.
Ayesha was born Pragya Debnath in Dhaniakhali, Hooghly, but converted to Islam later. ThePrint couldn’t ascertain when she converted.
According to the report, she relocated to Bangladesh last year after marrying a Bangladeshi national, who was then in Oman. She taught at madrassas there, and used to look after the recruitment drive for Neo-JMB’s women’s wing.
No connection with home
Tathagata Basu, Superintendent of Police (SP), Hooghly (rural) said Bengal police has “nothing to do with the case”.
“She left her village in Hooghly three years back. In fact, her identity was different here. She was Pragya Debnath, a girl in a village in Dhaniakhali. We have no case against her registered with us,” he said.
Asked about the connection of the Bangladesh case with India, Basu said, “This is now a matter of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). She has been arrested in a foreign land and there are serious charges against her. The respective governments will deal with that. We have nothing to say on this.”
Her parents still stay in Dhaniakhali in Hooghly. They had no idea about her actions and plans, said a senior police official of the district.
“We have reached out to them to communicate the news. They told us that they had almost no contact with the girl. She left her home years back and they had no update on her whereabouts. As of now, we have not get any request from Bangladesh police or any direction from the MHA in this regard. So we have nothing to do about it now,” said the official who didn’t wish to be named.
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