JMB supremo Abdur Rahman who had been spearheading the deadly militant campaign joined Islamic Chhatra Shangha (now Islami Chhatra Shibir) when he was a student.

Son of an infamous collaborator of the Pakistan army during the Liberation War, Rahman graduated from an Ahle Hadith madrasa in Jamalpur. As his father Abdullah Ibn Fazal of Charshi village in the district was a leading Jamaat leader, he was sent to Madina University in Saudi Arabia for higher education at the party's expense. After a stint fighting against the former Soviet army in Afghanistan, he returned to Bangladesh and formed JMB.

According to sources, Rahman was also a Rokon [member] of Jamaat-e-Islami.

Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai, Rahman's closest aide and operations commander of Jagrata Muslim Janata, Bangladesh (JMJB), too had a past with Chhatra Shibir.

"I used to support Bangladesh Chhatra League when I was in school. Later as a student of Azizul Haq College in Bogra, I joined Islami Chhatra Shibir," Bangla Bhai said in an interview with The Daily Star in May 2004.

"After completion of my education in 1995, I quit Shibir because by then Jamaat had accepted the female leadership although it had all along been saying that it considered female leadership sacrilege," said the dreaded militant ideologue.

Chief of JMB military wing and younger brother of Abdur Rahman, Ataur Rahman Sunny was a popular Shibir leader in his student life. After schooling at Kamalkhan Senior Madrasa in Charshi Khalifapara of Jamalpur, he was enrolled at Kushtia University, a Shibir stronghold, and soon made a name for his organisational capacity.

On joining his brother's militant outfit, Sunny had developed a network between the activists of JMB and Jamaat-Shibir.

He was arrested along with 18 others at Maheshpur village in Khetlal of Joypurhat in August 2003 after some 150 militants had fought with the police at former Jamaat leader Montezar's house.

Mohammad Rakib Hasan Russell alias Hafez Mahmud, who was held by Rab in city's Baitul Mukarram area on February 28, dissociated himself from Jamaat politics after the party had joined government under a female leadership in 2001.

Private TV channel NTV recently aired a 2003 video footage, where Hafez says he had been engaged in Shibir politics before joining JMB. " As I was not a student, I could not work directly with the Shibir. But I worked for a Jamaat candidate in 2001 election," said the JMB Shura member in the footage taken immediately after the Khetlal incident.

Shura member Salahuddin alias Salehin passed SSC examinations from BM High School in Narayanganj Bandar. As a student of Tejgaon Polytechnic Institute in Dhaka, he got acquainted with Sunny and joined the JMB. He was in charge of militant operations in Sylhet-Mymensingh region.

Like other members of Shura, the top decision-making body, he had been a worker of Chhatra Shibir before joining the now banned militant outfit.

Khaled Saifullah alias Faruq Hossain, who was responsible for JMB in Rangpur-Dinajpur region, was a Shibir activist during his student life. After passing SSC from Kolakhali Zinnat Memorial High School in Pirojpur, he was admitted to Madrasa-e-Aliyah in Dhaka.

He later joined Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJi) and came into contact with the JMB chief through HuJi boss Mufti Hannan in 1999. His organisational skills earned him a Shura membership in next to no time.

Abdul Awal Sarker, the other Shura member and Rahman's son-in-law, has also been learnt to have involvement with Shibir before he joined hands with his father-in-law. He was responsible for overseeing JMB activities in greater Rajshahi region.

Besides, many of the detained JMB leaders including regional commanders and Eshers [full-time activist] have admitted before the investigators to their past involvement with the Jamaat-Shibir.