Overview
- The West Bengal Special Task Force arrested a third suspect, college student Aditya Singh, after questioning of two earlier detainees led investigators to his role in photographing minister Umesh Rai’s family and passing the images to the cell.
- Police say the three arrests follow the July 31 detentions of suspected JeM associate Hamim Mondal and his aide Arpita Sarkar, whose phones yielded encrypted contacts with Pakistan‑based handles named by investigators as 'Rana', 'Uzair', 'Abid Jat333' and 'Hamad'.
- The National Investigation Agency has taken over interrogations of the main suspects to map the network, and courts have put Singh into STF custody to allow further questioning and forensic work.
- Forensic teams are working to decrypt seized devices, examine bank records and trace cryptocurrency transactions and foreign SIM use to establish who in Pakistan directed and funded the module.
- Investigators say the alleged Shahzad Bhatti Network used honey‑trapping, surveillance and plans for abduction or extortion to target at least six ministers’ families and senior officials, a pattern that raises broader national security concerns about cross‑border influence operations.