3 Rohingyas arrested

Acting on a tip-off from Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA), detectives on Sunday night arrested three Rohingyas at Lalbagh for their alleged links with suspected Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operatives involved in Burdwan blast.

This is the first instance of arrest since investigators of Bangladesh and India started sharing intelligence on militancy and decided to jointly tackle the cross-border menace. They expect to arrest more suspected militants as they are launching simultaneous drivers against operatives of outlawed JMB, according to detectives.

A team of Detective Branch of police raided Lalbagh and arrested Noor Hossain alias Rafiqul Islam, 26, Yasir Arafat, 22, and Omar Karim, 25, and seized five detonators, two bombs and explosives.

“Two of them [Noor and Yasir] were maintaining communications with the Burdwan blast suspects,” Deputy Commissioner of DB (South) Krishna Pada Roy told a news briefing at the media centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police yesterday.

“We have found similarities between the information we have got from the Indian investigators and the information we had about Noor and Yasir,” he said in reply to a query.

A DB official involved in investigation into militancy told The Daily Star after the briefing that they had got a call list from the NIA about the two frequently communicating with the persons arrested and accused in the Burdwan blast.

The duo had direct link with Rohingya leader Khaled Mohammad alias Abdur Noor, who had allegedly worked jointly with JMB in Burdwan and is one of the suspects, said DB officials.

The trio confessed that Khaled was their ideological leader, the officials claimed.

“They are Rohingyas and staying illegally in the country, but we have yet to confirm if they went to India or not,” Krishna said, adding, Omar Karim had been living in the country illegally for 12 years, Noor for four years and Yasir for around one year.

Karim studied at Fatehpur Madrasa in Hathazari upazila, Noor at Hathazari Eshapur Madrasa and Yasir was a student at Al Jamia Patia Qawmi Madrasa, he added.

They were alleged members of Rohingya organisations including Solidarity Organisation (RSO) and some other militant outfits, said the detectives, adding, the arrestees were allegedly spreading militancy under cover of studentship.

The trio were presented before the media during the news briefing at the DMP media cell. The law enforcers said the arrestees were sued in two cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act and Explosives and Substances Act with Lalbagh police.

Earlier last month, the NIA arrested a Myanmar national at Hyderabad in connection with the Burdwan blast. The agency identified the 38-year-old arrestee as Khaleed alias Khalid Mohammed.

After the October 2 blast that left two alleged JMB operatives killed and one injured, an NIA team visited Dhaka in mid-November. In return, a seven-member Bangladesh delegation comprising officials of law-enforcement and intelligence agencies visited Kolkata on November 27-30.

They exchanged information and lists of JMB operatives and other criminals allegedly operating both in India and Bangladesh. Both the sides have agreed to cooperate with each other to hunt down the operatives.