India on Friday declared the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), accused for the terror attack at a cafe in Dhaka in 2016, as a terrorist organisation.

In a notification, the Union Home Ministry said the outfit has committed and promoted acts of terrorism and has been engaged in radicalisation and recruitment of youths for terrorist activities in India. Therefore, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh or Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen India or Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Hindustan and all its manifestations have been inserted in the First Schedule to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, the notification said.

The listing under the First Schedule of the UAPA means the outfit is now a banned organisation in India, a home ministry official said. Twenty-two people, including 17 foreigners, were killed in the attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan area of Bangladesh capital Dhaka on July 1, 2016. During a joint operation, police killed six of the attackers.

The Bangladesh Police had blamed terror group JMB for the two terror attacks. Security agencies in India have also established the JMB’s links with bomb blasts at Burdwan in West Bengal on October 2, 2014 and Bodh Gaya on January 19, 2018.

According to the Home Ministry notification, the JMB came into existence in 1998 with the objective of establishing an Caliphate through Jehad. The JMB and its formations like Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen India or Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Hindustan and their manifestations have committed acts of terrorism, promoted acts of terrorism and have been engaged in radicalisation and recruitment of youths for terrorist activities in India.

The JMB was engaged in recruitment and raising funds for terrorist activities, procurement of explosives chemicals and assembling of Improvised Explosives Devices, it said. Investigations have also revealed JMB’s plan of making permanent bases within ten kilometers along the indo-Bangladesh border in several districts of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura and plans of spreading its network in South India with an overarching motive to establish Caliphate in the Indian subcontinent, the notification said.