A multilingual man giving his name as Reazul Sarkar and carrying a diary written in Marathi was arrested in Bihar’s Kishanganj district early on Sunday for suspicious movement in the area close to the India-Bangladesh border. Officials still interrogating him said his suspected links with the latest Mumbai blasts were being ascertained.
The 30-year-old man, who was arrested from the house of one Mehtab Alam in Maheshpura village, gave as many as seven aliases to interrogators from the Intelligence Bureau and the Bihar police. Sarkar is conversant in Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Hindi and Bengali, said sources. He had been living in the village as a tenant for the past 12 days. Mehtab Alam fled immediately after Sarkar’s arrest, but was arrested in the next few hours.
Three cellphones, SIM cards and some literature in Marathi were recovered from Sarkar’s possession. He initially gave his name as Akash Khan and frequently changed his statements during the interrogation about five hours long. As for his place of residence, he cited cities in Gujarat, Karnataka and West Bengal, leaving interrogators perplexed.
Bihar DGP Neelmani said the two arrested men’s identities and past travel records were being verified. Sources in the Bihar police said Sarkar was being suspected by the intelligence officials of having links with the HuJI outfit that is blamed for several terrorist attacks.