10 'JMB suspects held in city
The Rapid Action Battalion claimed to have arrested 10 suspected members, including a woman, of the JMB's “Sarwar-Tamim” group from the capital's Uttara and Kalabagan areas early yesterday.
Of them, at least four were former colleagues of fugitive top JMB militant Maynul Islam Musa, a suspect in the July 1, 2016 Gulshan café attack, at the school, said Rab.
Three of the four colleagues used to meet the investigators of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, the investigating agency of the café attack, since Musa's link to militancy emerged in July, two of the arrestees told The Daily Star last month.
The arrestees are Shariful Islam, 46, former principal of Life School in Uttara, its former academic coordinator Ziaur Rahman, 31, incumbent Principal Mizanur Rahman, 43, former teacher Mufti Abdur Rahman bin Ataullah, 37, Abu Sadat Md Sultan Al Razi alias Liton, 41, Al Mizanur Rashid, 41, Kowshik Adnan Sobhan, 37, Meraj Ali, 30, Shariar Wazed Khan, 36, and Jannatul Mohol alias Jinnah, 60.
Requesting anonymity, a CTTC official told this correspondent that the trio had helped the investigating agency with providing information about Musa. The CTTC did not find their involvement in militancy.
The Rab, however, claimed they came to know about the arrestees' link to militancy during investigation of a case filed with Ashulia Police Station after suspected JMB militant Sarwar Jahan jumped to death while trying to flee from a building during a raid in Ashulia on October 8 last year.
According to the CTTC, Musa had a close connection with Maj (retd) Jahid, a trainer of the Gulshan café attackers, and slain “Neo JMB” leader Tanvir Kaderi, who had sheltered the attackers. Jahid was killed in a drive in the capital's Mirpur on September 2 last year.
Speaking at a press conference at the Rab media centre in the city's Karwanbazar, Col Anwar Latif Khan, additional director general (operations) of Rab, yesterday said the 10 arrestees used to try to motivate the guardians of schoolchildren into militancy.
None of the arrestees took part in terrorist activities. Their role was to increase members of the militant group and to promote its ideology among a target group of people through invitation, Anwar added.
There was a prayer room at Life School where the arrestees used to meet and invite people, mostly guardians. Woman member Jannatul of the group used to work with female guardians, the Rab official told journalists.
Suspected militants killed or arrested in recent drives by police or Rab were basically motivated by Shariful who had been doing this for around two and a half years, he said.
The arrestees, said Anwar, used to communicate among themselves using “secret apps” which could not be tracked down normally. They selected students for admission to the school after interviewing guardians who would be motivated into militancy.
The Rab official, however, said they did not receive any complaint from guardians about anyone trying to motivate them to get involved in militancy.
During a visit to the school on December 28, this correspondent talked to Principal Mizanur Rahman about Musa. The principal filmed the conversation with the reporter saying that he would hand over the video footage to CTTC officials.
“Counterterrorism officials took all the documents and computers from the school in September [last year]. We met them on several occasions and we need to inform them everything time to time,” he said.
The school has around 110 students and 23 teachers, said the principal.
Talking to The Daily Star over the phone on that day, Ziaur, who left the school with Shariful, said they left the institution following an internal dispute among its founders and set up another school named “Knowledge Home” in Uttara.
Asked if “Sarwar-Tamim group” and “Neo JMB” was the same outfit, the Rab official refused to make any comment.
According a press release provided to journalists by the Rab, Sadat became acquainted with Maj (retd) Jahid at the school. His son and Jahid's daughter were classmates.
Jahid also invited another arrestee Rashid to the outfit. Meraj was also recruited by Jahid.
Kowshik recently had a discussion with his friend Shahriar about going to Syria while Mufti Abdur Rahman met Maj (sacked) Zia, military wing chief of banned militant outfit Ansar al-Islam, said the release.
Comments