Jama’atul Ansar gave KNF Tk 17 lakh to buy arms

New militant outfit -- Jama'atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya -- gave Tk 17 lakh to separatist group of Chattogram Hill Tracts Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) to buy weapons, said Rab.

The outfit also sent over Tk 50 lakh to different places through banking and mobile banking channels over the last eight to nine months for conducting organisational activities.

At a press briefing, Khandaker Al Moin, director of Rab's legal and media wing, shared the information with reporters at its media centre in the capital yesterday, hours after four members of Jama'atul Ansar were arrested at Cumilla's Laksam upazila.  

Two books on extremism, a training syllabus, nine leaflets, a diary containing accounts of the organisation and four other books were recovered from the arrestees on Thursday night.

The arrestees are: Muntashir Ahmed alias Bachchu, chief financial coordinator of the outfit, Ismail Hossain and Abdul Quader, "hijrat" affairs coordinators, and Helal Ahmed Zakaria, third-in-command of its military wing.

With the latest arrest, 26 leaders and operatives of the new militant outfit have been arrested while Rab disclosed the identities of 55 who left home to join the outfit. Three KNF members have also been held.

Law enforcers started a crackdown in remote hilly areas of Bandarban and Rangamati on October 10 following information that Jama'atul Ansar members are now undergoing training on explosives and operating firearms in the hilly areas with support from "separatist" group KNF, Rab said earlier.

Rab official Moin said Muntashir used to collect funds from different sources, donors and sympathisers and distribute the money among various sectors through banking and mobile banking channels on the instructions of the outfit's Majlish-e-Shura member (finance) Mosharraf Hossain Rakib.

Muntashir sent an amount to family members and close relatives of the outfit's members.

"We have even found that an individual provided the organisation his hard-earned money," said Moin.

He said they came to know that the outfit's Ameer Anisur Rahman alias Mahmud alias Tamal was a manager of a well-known CNG filling station in Cumilla around two years ago.

He was an active member of banned militant outfit Ansar Al Islam.

He sold his house in Cumilla for Tk 17 lakh and bought 3.5 bighs of land in Naikkhangchhari of Bandarban. He was living with family, farming and also carrying out organisational activities on the land, Moin added.

Arrestees -- Ismail and Quader -- admitted to Rab that the two sent 29 youths to Bandarban.

They also said Jama'atul Ansar has a female wing.