Police officials say a man held near the high-security Bengdubi military station in North Bengal has confessed to being a Bangladeshi spy. The suspect arrested by army personnel on Friday for loitering suspiciously around the military establishment was remanded to police custody by a Siliguri court on Saturday.
”The person was observed acting suspiciously near the military zone and was promptly arrested and questioned by army personnel”, said a high-ranking state police officer, who did not want to be identified. “In the first interrogation, he confessed that he is Ashraful Alam, a Deputy Superintendent in the Bangladeshi secret service. He said he had crossed over to Bengal by swimming across the Mahananda River.”
The suspect, with unkempt looks, a salt and pepper beard, and disheveled clothes, did not have any papers—only a 2-rupee note was found in his pocket. The disguise is thought to have a goal of avoiding suspicion, by rendering him as a ragged local vagrant.
After confessing, the man was taken to the Bagdogra police station. Security around the Bengdubi military station has since been heavily tightened, obviously because of the conflict the government is having with Pakistan. The discovery of the incident is being taken more seriously by authorities because of the strategic significance of the military base, which has numerous vital facilities, among which are a hospital and an Army public school.
On Saturday, police started sanitising the outer periphery of the military station with the help of sniffer dogs and a metal detector to prevent a security breach or a surveillance device from having been planted without detection.
Remarkably, the Bengdubi military station based in the Naxalbari community block of Siliguri sub-division has received a recent high-level military visit. On March 20, on the occasion of a cataract surgery camp set up for Army veterans and selected civilians, Lt Gen RC Tiwari, GOC-in-C, Eastern Command, inaugurated the camp, highlighting the operational role of the station.
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