The sleuths of the city police’s detective department recovered three cell phones with active internet collection and cash from the cell of Aftab Ansari, the mastermind behind the January 2002 attack on the American Centre in Kolkata, the Police informed on Saturday morning.
Ansari, an erstwhile operator of the terrorist group, Asif Reza Commando (ARC), which had ties with Pakistan-based militant outfits such as Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HUJI) and Jaish-e-Mohammed. (JeM), is currently serving life imprisonment at Presidency Central Correctional Home in South Kolkata.
Recently, it came to the notice of the detective department sleuths that mobile communications were being made from the cell of Ansari at Presidency Jail, multiple times in a day. Accordingly, city police sources said, a sudden raid and search operations were conducted at his cell by the detective department sleuths.
“Three mobile phones, two routers, a WIFI device, two card readers, a pen drive, and earphones were recovered from his clothes and beddings. At the same time, the detective department sleuths Rs 31,000, all in Rs 500-denominations, from Ansari’s possession. An investigation has been launched into how such items reached the cell of a notorious terrorist like Ansari, who is currently serving life imprisonment,” said a city police officer.
He said that the raid and search operations at Ansari’s cell were conducted on Friday night.
A case had already been registered at the local Hasting Police Station and on the basis of that an investigation had been initiated. The investigating officers are not ruling out the possibility of involvement of prison officials and staff behind the development.
It is leant that the main focus of investigation in the matter is persons or places where Ansari used to communicate by using these devices. The sleuths are especially trying to trace whether he was communicating with anyone in Pakistan or not and what were the communication channels that he had been using for that purpose.
Earlier, a similar raid and search operations were conducted at the Presidency Central Correctional Home on August 20. A smartphone and a SIM card were recovered from undertrial prisoner Abdul Moinuddin on that day.
During the recent past, several actions have been initiated by the state administration to snap the prison official-criminal nexus in the state. Recently, the superintendent and chief controller of Presidency Central Correctional Home were also suspended. The Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari also ordered a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probe in the matter.
