India has put the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which is behind several terror attacks in the two countries, on the list of banned organizations under a stringent anti-terror law. In a notification, the Indian Home Ministry said on Friday night that the JMB has committed and promoted acts of terrorism and has been engaged in radicalisation and recruitment of youths for terrorist activities in India and procurement of explosives chemicals and assembling of Improvised Explosives Devices.
Therefore, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh or Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen India or Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Hindustan and all its manifestations have been inserted in the First Schedule to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, the notification said. The listing under the First Schedule of the UAPA means the outfit is now a banned organisation in India, a senior Home Ministry official said.
Security agencies in India have established the JMB's links with bomb blasts at Burdwan in West Bengal on October 2, 2014 and Bodh Gaya in Bihar on January 19, 2018. Several JMB members have been arrested and chargesheeted by India’s top counter-terror body National Investigation Agency (NIA). The police in north eastern Indian state of Assam have also found involvement of JMB in five cases registered by them and a total of 56 accused belonging to JMB were arrested.
According to the Home Ministry notification, the JMB came into existence in 1998 with the objective of establishing a Caliphate through Jihad. Investigations have also revealed JMB's plan of making permanent bases within ten kilometers along the indo-Bangladesh border in several districts of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura and plans of spreading its network in South India with an overarching motive to establish Caliphate in the Indian subcontinent, the notification said.