Deported Militants: Rab arrests 2 convicted in Singapore
Rab yesterday arrested two deported Bangladeshis from the capital's Sabujbagh area. The duo served jail time in Singapore after being convicted for having links to terror financing.
Daulat Zaman, 35, and Sohel Hawlader, 29, both went to Singapore as workers in 2004 and 2009 respectively.
Lt Col Emranul, commanding officer of the Rab-3 team that arrested the two, said Daulat and Sohel were radicalised by their gang leader, one Mizanur, after going to Singapore. They had four meetings with Mizanur in Singapore before their arrest in 2016.
In a meeting on March 25 last year at Water Front Park in Singapore, they took oaths to carryout militant activities in Bangladesh, the Rab official said quoting the duo.
Daulat and Sohel, hailing from Bogra and Narsingdhi respectively, were arrested along with four other Bangladeshis in early 2016 in Singapore.
The four others are-- Rahman Mizanur, 32, the ringleader; Mamun Leakot Ali, 30; Miah Rubel, 27; and Md Jabath Kysar Haje Norul Islam Sowdagar, 31.
All were later convicted for two to five years by a Singapore Court for financing terror.
The six, according to Singapore authorities, were members of a group called Islamic State in Bangladesh (ISB), and had a plan to carry out attacks back home to topple the government.
The duo was then deported by authorities on September 26 after their jail term ended, Rab said.
Back home after serving in jail, the two arrestees were trying to revive militant activities here, Rab said.
A team of Rab-3, after a strong surveillance, arrested them at around 12:30am yesterday when they met inside an under-construction building, Emranul added.
The Rab official, however, yesterday claimed the duo were members of the banned militant outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh. He said they were planning attacks on law enforcers, justices and religious leaders including pirs.
Before their arrest in Singapore, Singapore authorities arrested 27 Bangladeshi construction workers between November 16 and December 1 in 2015 for “supporting armed jihadi 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 links with militancy.
DB officials had then said that the 26 deportees had no links to Islamic State or al-Qaeda. But among them, the 14 had links with banned local outfit ABT and its detained spiritual leader Jasim Uddin Rahmani.
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