CTTC to start deradicalising militants in jail this month

The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit is going to start a long-overdue process of deradicalising militants inside prisons from this month.

Social, clinical and educational psychologists, religious clerics and counterterrorism experts are expected to start deradicalising jailed militants and also those on bail, said CTTC chief Md Asaduzzaman.

"The home ministry recently gave approval to the CTTC to provide counselling to extremist prisoners in jails," he told The Daily Star on Tuesday.

The CTTC of Dhaka Metropolitan Police in August last year had applied to the ministry for the permission.

Initially, psychologists and religious clerics will be appointed at the Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj, Kashimpur High Security Jail, Chattogram Central Jail and two other prisons in the country's north, including one in Bogura, Asaduzzaman said.

He said the initiative has been taken in those jails where militants are imprisoned.

The initiative will be carried out under a Tk 350 crore project titled "Construction of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Prevention Centre of Bangladesh Police".

"We have taken the initiative so that militants already arrested never return to the path of militancy," said Md Mahfuzul Islam, deputy commissioner of the CTTC unit and also the deputy director of the project.

He said preparation of an action plan for appointment of experts is at final stage. A team of teachers from the departments of psychologyand international relations of Dhaka University are devising the action plan under the supervision of the Centre for Genocide Studies, he added.

Mahfuzul said this project will end in June 2024 and they may apply for an extension after assessing the results and militancy situation after two years.

Security analyst Maj Gen ANM Muniruzzaman (retd) sees the move as a good one. He, however, observed that deradicalisation of militants in jail is a complicated process.

Accommodation crisis remains a major problem as militants cannot be segregated from other inmates in overcrowded prisons.

"Also, deradicalised militants need to be rehabilitated. If that cannot be done properly, there may be a possibility of their relapse," Muniruzzaman told this newspaper on Tuesday.

The CTTC chief said under the project they will rehabilitate 20 militants this fiscal year, providing each of them Tk 1 lakh so that they can earn their living and get themselves reintegrated into society.

He said they will also monitor their activities.

Abdulla Al Noman, now in his mid-20s, can be a perfect example of how a less radicalised militant can become more radicalised in prison.

Noman, who used to share and "like" radical contents on social media, was arrested in 2018. During his 15 months behind bars, he met some militants who made him a key militant leader, said CTTC officials.

Coming out of jail on bail, he got in touch with the then Neo JMB chief Abu Mohammad. As per Abu's instructions, Noman learnt to make improvised explosive devices (IED) and also planted an IED in a police box in the capital's Paltan on July 24, 2020, the officials added.

He was arrested again on November 5 last year.

PIECEMEAL INITIATIVES

According to security experts, the authorities need to adopt a seamless "hard and soft"approach towards tackling militancy. Although hard response like intervention by law enforcers saw persistent success, soft response like socio-political campaigns against militancy was never pursued fully.

Such half-hearted anti-militancy socio-political campaigns, initiatives to deradicalise militants and create awareness among people about militancy always left open scope for the rise of militancy, they added.

Over the last one-and-a-half decades, socio-political campaigns gained momentum after a major terrorist attack. But it fizzled out until another attack was perpetrated, experts said.

Maj Gen ANM Muniruzzaman (retd) said the country needs to adopt a national strategic policy on fighting militancy.

"To fight terrorism, we need to adopt a 'whole of society' approach," he said.

Anti-militancy campaigns were conducted by different stakeholders since the Holey Artisan cafe attack, but those were never followed up later.

Take, for instance, CTTC training.

The CTTC unit under the project started providing training to different stakeholders, including police, Rab, Ansar, jail staffers, BGB, madrasas, security guards, students, teachers, duffadars, local elected representatives, journalists, civil society members, imams and muazzins.

The unit has so far trained different stakeholders in 48 districts in the last two years.

After the training, the trainers were expected to deliver speeches and monitor whether the trainees learnt it. The imams and muazzins were supposed to deliver anti-militancy sermons during prayers.

But the CTTC officials never monitored whether the instructions were followed properly or not, said officials and trainees.

Asked about delivering sermons regularly from mosques, Md Bojlur Rashid, deputy director (administration) of Bangladesh Islamic Foundation, told The Daily Star yesterday that it might not be done regularly as devotees would not listen to similar sermons repeatedly.

About the initiatives, Bojlur said they have provided training to all mosque imams on extremism issues and asked them to deliver anti-militancy sermons.

He further claimed that they monitor whether such sermons are delivered from mosques.

However, visiting a number of mosques in the capital recently, these correspondents did not find any imam giving sermons on extremism issues.