No thanks to technology

Technology seems to have made jobs easy for militants and difficult for crime busters.

Facebook groups, YouTube videos and two highly secured apps -- Telegram and ProtectedText -- come in handy for militant outfits to spread hate and select or train would-be radicals in Bangladesh.

Law enforcers, on the other hand, find the protective nature of closed online groups and the messaging tools a major obstacle to militancy probe and counterterrorism operation.

With a boom in information technology, devices like smart phones and apps, radicalisation no longer requires real-life preaching.

Many turn to extremism by going through contents available online while many become radicalised by group discussions on Facebook.

Apart from social networking sites, Telegram and ProtectedText have become very popular in militant circle and radicals use the apps for making plans and issuing directives. They were used while carrying out a number of killing missions in Bangladesh.

Another useful tool for militancy is YouTube, a video-sharing site where hundreds of clips on hate campaign and terror propaganda and training are available.

Expressing concern, advertisers globally are asking YouTube authorities to take down the videos. Some have already pulled their ads.

Tanvir Hasan Zoha, a cyber security researcher working with Crime Research and Analysis Foundation, an NGO, said the number of secret Facebook groups patronising religious extremism will be over 100.

International security expert Prof Rohan Gunaranta says more than 20,000 websites are run by extremists and Bangladeshi militants can access many of those. But there are only 100 sites to counter radical websites.

APPS FOR KILLING, PLANNING

Officials say they can watch radical activities on Facebook on a limited scale but monitoring communications over Telegram and ProtectedText is not possible as these apps are heavily encrypted and restricted.

Telegram has a special feature that automatically destroys the text once shared among group members.

Bara Abdullah, a suspected militant arrested from the capital's Gabtoli in February last year, told investigators regarding a plan shared in Telegram to attack a senior lawyer who filed a writ petition challenging the legality of a constitutional provision giving Islam the status of state religion.

ProtectedText is known as the safest platform in virtual world for storing texts. None, not even the admin, can identify the users or their locations, and the messages can be accessed only by authorised persons. Notes here are not self-destructive but once deleted, they cannot be recovered.

On March 30, 2013, militants hacked to death blogger Oyasiqur Rahman Babu in the city's Tejgaon. Two attackers, including Hathazari madrasa student Zikrullah, were caught while fleeing.

"During interrogation, Zikrullah told us that the killing plan was executed through communications over ProtectedText," a senior police official of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of the DMP told The Daily Star recently.

On Facebook, he said, texts can be recovered even after they are deleted but that is not possible on Telegram or ProtectedText. "That's why we are yet to have any success in intercepting communications among militants through Telegram and ProtectedText."

FACEBOOK RADICALS

The Daily Star has learnt about a dozen secret Facebook groups including Banglay Khelafat Chai, Eso Tawhider Pothey, Arakaner Pothey, Jerusalemer Pothey, Islamic State: Dawla al Islamia, Kaler Sakkhi and Salahuddiner Ghora.

Write-ups on al-Qaeda and IS, their leaders, operation methodology and success stories are regularly posted in those groups.

Despite limited vigilance capacity, law enforcers have arrested some extremists active online. Their forums were shut but dozens more popped up in no time.

One Nahid Hasan used to run Islamic State: Dawla al-Islamia using the pseudonym Jihadi John before being arrested in the capital's Badda on November 24, 2015. Police, however, did not shut this group to track down other members.

Investigators say madrasa goers and students from private universities are among the group's around 500 members scattered in Dhaka, Narsingdi, Kishoreganj, Comilla and some northern districts.

On the night of January 2 this year, one Ehsan Islam in that group claimed credit for the killing of a Hindu man for “betrayal”. The next day, police recovered the body of a Hindu doctor from the capital's Aziz Super Market.

Police suspect the doctor might have been killed for helping an intelligence agency arrest another doctor, who was suspected to be involved in extremism and went missing from the city's Science Laboratory area on October 15 last year.

DMP Deputy Commissioner Md Alimuzzam, who is assigned to CTTC's Cyber Security and Crime Division, said they began tracking militants on Facebook but that is no big-scale operation. “Recently, we closed down some IDs and groups for sponsoring extremism.”

Counterterrorism experts say fighting extremism online has become a big challenge for law enforcers worldwide. A global consensus among the websites and apps companies is needed to fight the evil force.