India’s NIA arrests 13 over alleged links to JMB offshoot

India’s National Investigation Agency has arrested 13 people over an alleged conspiracy linked to Imam Mahmuder Kafila, an offshoot of the banned Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, the agency said on Tuesday. The arrests followed searches at 16 locations in Assam, Kerala and West Bengal. The NIA said eight of those arrested were from Assam, four from West Bengal and one from Kerala.

The case originated with the arrest by Assam police of 11 people on December 28, 2025, from Assam, Tripura and West Bengal. The NIA said further investigations concerned an online radicalisation module operated through a Telegram group by Bangladesh-based handlers. According to the agency, the investigation found that the accused were involved in a conspiracy to spread the organisation’s ideology in West Bengal and the northeastern States.

It said the alleged plan included promoting an extremist agenda, radicalising vulnerable young people and expanding the network in India. The NIA said a senior JMB member, Imam Mahmud Habibullah, established the offshoot to advance the banned group’s agenda in India. It alleged that the network used clandestine meetings, religious indoctrination programmes, extremist literature and digital platforms for propaganda.

Ten other accused, including nine Bangladeshi nationals and one Indian, remain absconding, the agency said. Separately, the NIA said it arrested Thangmang Haokip in connection with an improvised explosive device attack on a home in Manipur’s Bishnupur district on April 7, in which two children died and another person was injured. It also arrested two men over an alleged ambush on the convoy of former Manipur chief minister Nongthombam Biren Singh in June 2024.