Memo to Rangpur DC to close down orphanage in Gangachhara

A memorandum was submitted to Rangpur deputy commissioner yesterday seeking action against some teachers and managing committee members of an orphanage in Gangachhara for allegedly running activities of banned Islamist militant organisation Jamat-ul Mujahedeen, Bangladesh (JMB) in the area.
The memorandum submitted by some people of Kochua village in Nohali union in Gangachara upazila said the teachers and managing committee members of Kochua Orphanage hold secret meetings at night with unknown visitors. Their activities are mysterious, it added.
The orphanage was earlier run by Al-Haramine, a Saudi based NGO, which withdrew from Bangladesh in 2004.
The memorandum alleged that the orphanage people have links with JMB.
Imams of two local mosques are also involved with the suspicious activities of the orphanage men, it added.
A son of one of the imams was arrested in 2005 for involvement in Islamist militancy and is now in Nilphamari jail and the other is absconding to evade arrest on the same charge, it said.
Police earlier raided the house of one of the imams and arrested his nephew with some Jihadi books.
The memorandum stated that the orphanage authorities show 400 inmates on roll but the actual number is less than 300 and the money allocated for them is spent to spread militancy in the area.
After Al-Haramine withdrew from the country, Nobel Institute for Rural Reforms, an NGO, took the responsibility to run the orphanage.
Chairman of Nohali Union Parishod Abdul Qader said,“ We informed the local administration about their activities.”
Contacted, Gangachara UNO Abu Nasher Abdullah, said he asked authorities of Nobel Institute for Rural Reforms to drop the teachers, director and managing committee members of the orphanage who had JMB connection.
When asked, director of Nobel Institute for Rural Reforms Atiqur Rahman said, they have formed a managing committee excluding the controversial persons.