Posed as techie, lived among cops for 3 months: How JeM operative ‘tracked’ Suvendu Adhikari’s movements | Kolkata News
KOLKATA: A 24-year-old man suspected of being a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) operative was arrested by the state’s Special Task Force (STF) from a gym inside a gated township in Burdwan on Thursday night, with investigators alleging he had been tracking CM Suvendu Adhikari’s movements. Hamim Mondal was picked up around 8 pm while working out at Renaissance Fitness Studio inside Renaissance Township, off NH-2. STF personnel, who had kept him under surveillance since Thursday evening, moved in as he was exercising, allowed him to collect his bag and phone, and took him into custody. CCTV footage from the gym reportedly captured the arrest.
Investigators suspect Mondal came into contact with the Pakistan-based Shahzad Bhatti–Azmal Gujjar gang around a year ago through social media, and that he is associated with JeM. The STF is probing whether he had earlier lived in a rented flat in New Town and believes he surveilled Adhikari’s movements near the CM’s residence in Chinar Park. Mondal, whose seized documents list his date of birth as December 18, 2002, had quit a job tagging barcodes at a garment factory in Howrah’s Pilkhana just before this year’s assembly elections, before moving to the Burdwan flat with his father, brother and sister roughly three months ago. He told neighbours he worked for an IT company in Kolkata. The family moved into the flat — owned by Delhi resident Ekta Mehra, who hadn’t occupied it in nine years — through local broker Syed Mazharul Ali. Mazharul said Mondal’s uncle had approached him on the family’s behalf, saying they wanted to relocate from Howrah to look after ancestral property nearby. Neighbours described the family as private and unremarkable. “We would often see him buying fruit or taking out the household trash. How could anyone know he was allegedly involved in terrorism?” said resident Swaswati Goswami, who said she watched plainclothes officers bring Mondal out of the gym from her window. Other residents raised concerns about security lapses at the 254-acre township, alleging brokers rent out flats without informing police and that guards are poorly trained. Several pointed out that senior police officers, including a DIG and SP, also live in the complex — yet said the arrest had left them feeling unsafe. In Mondal’s ancestral village of Dirghanagar in Monteswar, relatives said they learned of the arrest only Friday morning. His uncle Suman called it “some misunderstanding,” describing Mondal as a “simple, quiet, and timid young man” who wasn’t even confident riding a motorcycle, and said the family — in the rice trade for generations — had never given anyone reason for suspicion.
