Top Huji leader held in Sylhet

Golam Mostofa

The Detective Branch of police arrested the alleged UK unit chief of outlawed Islamist outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh in Sylhet on Thursday 14 months after he came out of jail on a High Court bail.
The DB yesterday took the Bangladesh-born British citizen, Golam Mostofa, 55, who is also an Afghan war veteran, on a four-day remand for interrogation.
London police levelled charges of financing militant groups against Mostofa and have seized various documents relating to militancy in several drives, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner AKM Shahidul Hoque at a press briefing yesterday.
"Coming out of jail on bail, Mostofa was carrying out militant activities in the country and tried to get other arrested militant leaders freed," he said. "During his stay in Birmingham, UK, until 2007, Mostofa had sent thousands of taka to militants active in Bangladesh. So, London police filed a case against him under terrorist financing act of that country."
The DMP commissioner said Mostofa directly participated in the Afghan war against the erstwhile Soviet Union and has close links to other Afghan war veterans conducting militant activities in Bangladesh.
After the Afghan war, Mostofa was also busy arranging financial support for Bosnia war.
Talking to The Daily Star on the DB office premises, Mostofa, however, denied his Huji connection and taking part in the Afghan war.
But DB Assistant Commissioner SM Rafiqul Islam, who led the drive to arrest the Huji leader, told The Daily Star that arrested Huji men confirmed that he was the outfit's UK unit chief and that he took part in the Afghan war.
On December 2, 2007, the Rapid Action Battalion arrested Mostofa in the city's Bashundhara Residential area with a German-made pistol, five bullets, five books on explosives and several other books on jihad, said DB officials.
Hailing from Bishwanath upazila in Sylhet, Mostofa is convicted to 17 years in prison in an arms case. He came out on a High Court bail on February 23 last year.
DB Assistant Commissioner Rafiqul Islam said they held Mostofa from the house of one of his relatives at Osmaninagar in Sylhet and after he was brought to Dhaka on Thursday afternoon, the law enforcers recovered several books on explosives and jihad from his Hazaribagh residence in the city.
"Mostofa had close relations with detained Huji founder Abdus Salam, chief Mufti Hannan, another British citizen and chief of UK-based NGO Green Crescent Faisal Mostafa, militants Sagir, Sheikh Farid and many others," said Rafiqul Islam.
According to sources, Mostofa had been staying in London since 1975 and went to the Afghan war from there.
Later, he launched a restaurant business in Birmingham and married a British citizen of Bangladesh origin.
He returned to Bangladesh in 2007 after London police filed the money laundering case against him and conducted several drives at his London residence to arrest him.
London police also froze the bank accounts of Mostofa and his wife.
Mostofa left his restaurant business to his wife and married another woman in Hazaribagh.