Staff Reporter :
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in a drive arrested two suspected members of the banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) from the city’s Rayerbazar area on Sunday.
The arrested men have been identified as M Soaiyeb Sheikh alias Soaiyeb, 31, from Narail district and Rafiqul Islam Rafiq, 30, hailing from Panchagarh district.
The elite force also recovered a foreign-made pistol, two magazines and four rounds of bullets from Soaiyeb’s bag, and a machete from Rafiq’s laptop bag.
RAB-2 Assistant Police Super Md Rabiul Islam said, “Acting on a tip off
we conducted a drive near Martyred Intellectuals Memorial around 12:10am on Sunday and arrested them.”
“We have information that a small group of JMB militants are regrouping under Soaiyeb to carry out subversive activities in Dhaka. Based on the information, we recently arrested some JMB members from Tejgaon, Savar and Gazipur.”
In the primary interrogation, Soaiyeb confessed that he was working at a sweater factory in Gazipur when he was introduced to New-JMB leader Yasin.
Soaiyeb, who is originally from Char Ariyara village of Narail district, studied at a madrasa for becoming a Quran hafez and then got admitted to a school in class VI in 1998.
However, he was unable to continue his studies because of his family’s financial problems.
He moved to Dhaka in 1999 to find a job for supporting his family. He began working at a sweater factory in 2011.
After Yasin’s arrest in 2016, Soaiyeb started leading the new faction of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (New JMB) in Gazipur area.
“Yasin also performed ‘waz’ ceremony for the New JMB’s spiritual icons Motiur Rahman Madani, Abdur Razzak bin Yusuf, Mozaffer bin Mohsin and Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani.”
Stating that Soaiyeb joined New JMB to work for Islam, he said: “At first, he was involved in trivial activities arranging meetings for the militant groups, but he was later given the job of regrouping fugitive JMB members after the crackdown of law enforcers on militants, following the attack on Holey Artisan Bakery.”
The story of Rafiq is no different. He is from Masjidpara village in Panchagarh and has three daughters and a wife.
He came to Gazipur in 2010, a year before Soaiyeb, to work in a readymade garment factory.
Rafiq studied till class VIII, and discontinued his education in 1997 because of financial crisis. Even he was similarly brainwashed by Yasin when they met in 2013.
“Soaiyeb met fellow JMB members a couple of times in Gazipur and on the outskirts of Dhaka to carry out their plans, before getting arrested,” the RAB official said.
“The arrested JMB men confessed that they were splitting up into smaller groups to carry out their activities to avoid the vigilance of law enforcement agencies,” adding that a case was filed with Tejgaon Police Station in this regard.
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in a drive arrested two suspected members of the banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) from the city’s Rayerbazar area on Sunday.
The arrested men have been identified as M Soaiyeb Sheikh alias Soaiyeb, 31, from Narail district and Rafiqul Islam Rafiq, 30, hailing from Panchagarh district.
The elite force also recovered a foreign-made pistol, two magazines and four rounds of bullets from Soaiyeb’s bag, and a machete from Rafiq’s laptop bag.
RAB-2 Assistant Police Super Md Rabiul Islam said, “Acting on a tip off
we conducted a drive near Martyred Intellectuals Memorial around 12:10am on Sunday and arrested them.”
“We have information that a small group of JMB militants are regrouping under Soaiyeb to carry out subversive activities in Dhaka. Based on the information, we recently arrested some JMB members from Tejgaon, Savar and Gazipur.”
In the primary interrogation, Soaiyeb confessed that he was working at a sweater factory in Gazipur when he was introduced to New-JMB leader Yasin.
Soaiyeb, who is originally from Char Ariyara village of Narail district, studied at a madrasa for becoming a Quran hafez and then got admitted to a school in class VI in 1998.
However, he was unable to continue his studies because of his family’s financial problems.
He moved to Dhaka in 1999 to find a job for supporting his family. He began working at a sweater factory in 2011.
After Yasin’s arrest in 2016, Soaiyeb started leading the new faction of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (New JMB) in Gazipur area.
“Yasin also performed ‘waz’ ceremony for the New JMB’s spiritual icons Motiur Rahman Madani, Abdur Razzak bin Yusuf, Mozaffer bin Mohsin and Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani.”
Stating that Soaiyeb joined New JMB to work for Islam, he said: “At first, he was involved in trivial activities arranging meetings for the militant groups, but he was later given the job of regrouping fugitive JMB members after the crackdown of law enforcers on militants, following the attack on Holey Artisan Bakery.”
The story of Rafiq is no different. He is from Masjidpara village in Panchagarh and has three daughters and a wife.
He came to Gazipur in 2010, a year before Soaiyeb, to work in a readymade garment factory.
Rafiq studied till class VIII, and discontinued his education in 1997 because of financial crisis. Even he was similarly brainwashed by Yasin when they met in 2013.
“Soaiyeb met fellow JMB members a couple of times in Gazipur and on the outskirts of Dhaka to carry out their plans, before getting arrested,” the RAB official said.
“The arrested JMB men confessed that they were splitting up into smaller groups to carry out their activities to avoid the vigilance of law enforcement agencies,” adding that a case was filed with Tejgaon Police Station in this regard.
