2 ‘JMB militants’ held in Dhaka

Law enforcers detained two alleged members of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) from Dhaka’s Sabujbagh area early today.

Two alleged members of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) are held from Dhaka’s Sabujbagh area on Sunday, October 15, 2017. Photo: Courtesy

The detainees-- Daulat Zaman alias Muaz al-Bangali, 35, of Bogra, and Sohel Howlader alias Belal Habsi al-Bangali, 29, of Narsingdi-- were held from the second floor of an under-construction building in East Rajarbagh area of Sabujbagh around 12:30am, Rab said. 

On information that the JMB men were holding a secret meeting on the spot, a team of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab)-3 conducted a raid there and detained the duo, said Lt Col Emranul Hasan, commanding officer of Rab-3.

The law enforcers also recovered two passports, extremism provoking books, four mobile phones, and several memory cards with extremism provoking e-books and videos, the Rab official told The Daily Star.

The duo went to Singapore as workers where they were radicalised by one Rahman Mizanur, 32, the ring leader of a group called “Islamic State in Bangladesh (ISB)”, which was planning to carry out attacks back home to topple government. Daulat went there in 2004 while Sohel in 2009.

Six members of the group, including Daulat, Sohel, and Mizanur, were arrested in Singapore in early 2016. A Singapore court later convicted them for terror financing and sentenced them to two to five years in jail.

After serving their jail terms, Daulat and Sohel were deported to Bangladesh by the authorities on September 26, Rab said.

However, claiming them as activists of banned outfit JMB, Rab said the duo were trying to revive militant activities here and were plotting to make attacks on pirs (spiritual leaders), judges, lawyers, and law enforcers.

Filing of case against the detainees was underway, he added.

Earlier in 2015, Singapore authorities arrested 27 Bangladeshi construction workers between November 16 and December 1 for “supporting armed jihad ideology of terrorist groups such as Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda”.

Of them, 26 were deported to Bangladesh and local police arrested 14 of them on December 21 in 2015 after police found their link with militancy.

Detective Branch (DB) officials said the 26 deportees had no link to IS or al-Qaeda, but the 14 arrested later had links with banned local outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and its detained spiritual leader Jashim Uddin Rahmani.