KOLKATA: An explosion was heard near an office of India’s federal counter-terrorism agency in the city of Kolkata on Monday, police and home office officials said.
An officer at the police control room in the eastern city said the cause of the blast at the National Investigation Agency (NIA) office had not yet been established.
A Home Ministry official said preliminary information was that nobody had been injured. The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the ministry planned to send a team from Delhi to investigate.
The NIA is currently investigating an earlier explosion in Burdwan, near Kolkata, in October that the agency believes was a botched plot by Bangladeshi militants to kill Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
A Kolkata court on Sunday gave the NIA custody of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) commander Sajid, a Bangladeshi national who West Bengal police arrested on Saturday in connection with the blast. Sajid’s arrest followed the detention of another suspect on Thursday.
“We cannot rule out JMB’s involvement in the blast. The group is targeting the federal agency because we have arrested its members,” said a Home Ministry official on condition of anonymity.
Explosion near spy office in Kolkata



