Ansar al Islam: ‘Major online campaigner of militancy’ held in city
The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit yesterday claimed to have arrested one of the three key Ansar al Islam operatives responsible for spreading extremism through online platforms.
Acting on a tip-off, a CTTC team raided the capital's Uttara area and arrested Hasibur Rahman alias Azzam Al Galib, 21, on Sunday, CTTC chief Md Asaduzzaman, an additional commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), told a press briefing at the DMP media centre in the capital.
He said Galib is the chief of dawah (invitation) wing of the Ansar al Islam and that the banned militant outfit's online presence would suffer a major blow following the arrest.
Galib is a first-year law student at a private university. He passed Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations in 2016. He got involved in militancy when he was a student of a college, said CTTC officials.
The CTTC chief said Galib was initially inspired by content, hailing violent extremism, circulated by two Facebook profiles under the names of Jamil Hasan and Jamshed Hossain. The two IDs were later suspended by the social media platform for spreading write-ups promoting Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Galib learnt about Ansar al Islam online pages like "Dawailallah", "Darulilm" and "Gazwa" --through those two IDs, he said.
Earlier, the CTTC unit arrested two of the three Ansar al Islam operatives tasked with spreading the outfit's ideology online. The arrestees are Al Amin Siddiqui and Jobaida Siddiqui Nabila, said officials.
Asaduzzaman said the trio used to run various campaigns on social media platforms to spread Ansar al Islam's ideology. Their ultimate aim is to introduce Sharia law in the country.
Talking about Galib, the CTTC chief said he started posting his write-ups on social media in 2019. For this, he opened a Facebook ID named "Azzam Al Galib". He also operated a telegram channel under the same name.
Galib opened another page on Facebook under the name of "Muahid Muslim" and sent the page's invite to others. Facebook shut down the ID and the page for having "too much radical content," he said.
Galib was also responsible for collecting funds through mobile money transfer apps. After getting the money, he would transfer it to the family members of arrested Ansar al Islam members.
Asaduzzaman said they would contact banks to know about the transaction details and whether any of the money was used to secure bail of those arrested Ansar al Islam members.
Replying to a question, he said they found contents encouraging militant activities in the cell phones recovered from the arrestees.
Yesterday, CTTC officials produced Galib before a Dhaka court, which placed him on a five-day remand.