BANGLADESH

The investigations into the Sept 7 blast at the entrance to a court in Indian capital New Delhi has spread to Bangladesh, with tacit cooperation between the counterterrorism agencies of the two countries leading to the arrest of a key suspect in the case.

The arrest also once again brought under focus the terror networks of the extremist organization Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and Hizbul Mujahideen across the sub-continent.

Indian government officials, however, did not disclose if the purported disappearance and interrogation of four Kashmiri students from a medical college in Sylhet were also linked to the probe into the Delhi High Court blast.

After a Kashmiri student of a medical college in Bangladesh was arrested by India's National Investigation Agency in connection with the blast, his father claimed that he himself had asked his son to return to India and handed the latter over to the investigators at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi soon after his arrival from Dhaka.

The NIA produced Wasim Akram Malik to a court in Delhi on Friday and he was remanded to agency's custody until Oct 21. Wasim is the son of a government official based in Kishtwar in Jammu and Kashmir and he was studying in a medical college in Bangladesh.

Wasim's parents, however, said that an incarcerated Hizbul Mujahideen militant, whom they got arrested for kidnapping their other son Junaid in 2010, set police after their family after the blast in front of Delhi High Court. Jammu and Kashmir police, however, described Junaid, who is yet to be traced, as a militant of the Hizbul Mujahideen.

The blast at the entrance to the Delhi court killed at least 15 and left many others injured.

Kishtwar came under the focus after investigations revealed that an email purportedly circulated by HuJI among media organisations to claim responsibility for the blast had in fact been sent from the town in Jammu and Kashmir.

Wasim was the third Kashmiri to be arrested in connection with blast. Earlier, two youths, Aamir Abbas and Abid Hussain, were arrested in Kishtwar.

Wasim's father Riaz ul Hassan Malik, an employee of India's state-owned National Hydroelectric Power Corporation, told journalists that he had received a letter from police in Kishtwar informing him that the NIA wanted to question his son in connection with the Delhi High Court blast.

"I made arrangements so that the NIA officials can talk to my son Wasim, who was in Bangladesh, over telephone. He readily agreed to cooperate with the investigation and I asked him to return. I received him at the airport in Delhi and then handed him over to the NIA officials," said Riaz ul Hassan Malik, who had in November 2010 lodged a complaint with the Jammu and Kashmir police that his youngest son Junaid had been kidnapped by Hizbul Mujahideen militants.

Police action on the basis of his complaint had led to the unearthing of a recruitment module of the terrorist networks and three Hizbul Mujahideen operatives, including one Azhar Ali, had been arrested. Police, however, could not trace Junaid.

The NIA purportedly started suspecting Wasim's role in the Delhi High Court blast after they questioned incarcerated Azhar Ali in a jail in Kashmir.

Wasim's family claimed that he had been in Kishtwar on the day of the blast at Delhi High Court and had not only withdrawn money from bank ATMs but also shopped in the malls, where he might have been caught on CCTV.

"My son is innocent and he had nothing to do with the blast in Delhi," said his mother Shamima Begum, who is a headmistress of a government school in Kishtwar.

Wasim, who had been in Kishtwar on Eid vacation, had gone back to Bangladesh on Sept 9, just two days after the blast.

Due to tacit cooperation between the security agencies of Bangladesh and India earlier in 2009 and 2010, a number of top leaders of insurgent organisations active in northeastern Indian states of Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur had landed in the custody of the law-enforcing agencies of India.

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 24, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh had upheld the security cooperation between his country and Bangladesh as an example.

"In South Asia, there are encouraging signs of cooperation in the area of security, as exemplified in India's growing cooperation with Bangladesh. Such cooperation is adding to the security of both our countries," he had said.