JMB masterminds yet to be identified

Although two years have passed since the Islamist militant outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) launched a countrywide bomb attack, the government has not yet found out the true masterminds behind that group.
The mystery about the masterminds remains shrouded especially because the six militant leaders who were hanged on March 29 this year were not allowed to speak out before the media before their death.
Questions that remain unanswered include those about the foreign links and funding that kept JMB operations alive for years.
Meantime, quoting high police officials the press reported that JMB leader Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai's killing mission of 2004 was launched upon the green signal of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, her all-powerful son Tarique Rahman and the then state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar.
But till date, the law enforcement authorities have not made any official move to initiate an investigation in this regard.
The press also reported that out of the top seven JMB leaders, four including Bangla Bhai were previously involved with Jamaat-e-Islami. Police investigation based on interrogation of arrested JMB leaders also revealed that most senior leaders of JMB had been previously involved with Jamaat.
The law enforcers had arrested a total of 698 JMB activists in connection with the August 17 bomb blast. The government filed 154 cases against them.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Nur Mohammad, however, notes that the investigations are still being carried out. "As far as I know, most of the related cases have been already disposed of. The remaining cases will also be quickly disposed of," he said.
Meanwhile, some people who were affected by Bangla Bhai's atrocious killing mission in Rajshahi region have filed several cases against the leading local patrons of JMB in recent months. These patrons are former telecom minister Barrister Aminul Haque, former deputy minister for land Ruhul Kuddus Talukder Dulu and former parliamentarian Nadim Mostafa.
These leaders had patronised JMB operations in the Rajshahi region for their personal political gain. But the JMB had already been secretly operating in the country since the late 1990s in different names.
Journalistic investigations show that under the leadership of Shaikh Abdur Rahman, JMB shared the same vision and philosophy of the mainstream Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami except that Jamaat wants to come to power through election and JMB through bloodshed.
Many political observers believe that the JMB might have been an armed front of some other political parties having the same type of goal to establish an Islamic state.
Investigators say during investigation into JMB's activities they have found that some individuals and organisation from the Middle East had given financial support to JMB at different times. But the investigators could not confirm the link between the JMB and the specific foreign countries.
The JMB also possessed huge explosives and arms, which indicates that it maintained an international network. But this issue remains unresolved.
Former IGP ASM Shajahan notes, "There had been a lot of progress in the JMB case. We may have hanged some top JMB leaders, but its origin has not been unveiled. We have to find out the masterminds who have sown the seeds of this poisonous tree. We should not just limit our arrests within the patrons and leaders of JMB--we must also find out the masterminds to end this episode for good."
Shajahan points out that the presence of JMB suicide squad tells us that its members were given motivation and education to commit suicide for JMB's cause. "The administration and law enforcers alone cannot prevent people from being persuaded to accept such motivation and education. The whole society needs to be involved in creating an environment to prevent such motivation and education," he added.
In the past, the governments had interfered with official investigations to digress from pinpointing the actual criminals and direct the investigations to their political opponents. "This kind of illegal interference must be stopped for good. There should be genuine investigation," Shajahan said.
Eminent lawyer Shahdeen Malik notes that many mysteries have remained unresolved. "This has left us with many doubts. We apprehend that others connected with the JMB and their activities have remained unknown and unnamed. Therefore, the fear of further attack lives on," he said.
Senior economist and anti-corruption activist Prof Muzaffer Ahmad says, "People have the right to know. If we could expose everything about the militancy to the people, this would have made them very alert for future attacks. It is best that the government takes some initiatives in this regard."