The five expelled North South University students, arrested for killing blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider, were linked to international Islamist militant organisation al-Qaeda and were working under a new-born extremist militant organisation “Ansarullah Bengali Team”.
“The team has been working in the country through some groups. One of the groups comprising the five killed Rajib on February,” Nazrul Islam, deputy commissioner of Detective Branch (North), told The Daily Star yesterday.
Quoting the students, Nazrul said, “The other groups attempted to kill bloggers Asif Mahiuddin on January 14 and Saniur Rahman on March 7. The five and the organisation follow al-Qaeda's ideology.”
DB personnel on March 2 arrested the five students -- Faisal bin Nayeem alias Dwip, Maksudul Hassan Anik, Ehsan Reza Rumman, Naim Sikder Irad, and Nafis Imtiaz.
Nazrul said before joining the team, Irad was a pro-Jamaat Islami Chhatra Shibir activist while the rest were motivated into joining it.
He said DB was trying to ascertain how many people and groups were active and arrest them.
The Daily Star found the team active through websites and blogs and various social media including Twitter and Facebook.
The websites comprise videos, audios and writings against democracy and in favour of jihad and even describes how bombs can be made from what is available in kitchens.
One of the groups, Ansar Al-Mujahideen English Forum, in their website on March 2 congratulated the students for killing Rajib and termed them “five lions of Ummah”.
The team's ideological leader is Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based al-Qaeda leader who was killed in 2011, said DB officials, adding that the team started operations in Bangladesh since 2008 centering different private universities and English medium educational institutions.