The law enforcement agencies have achieved a significant success in 2016 in controlling militancy with capturing top leaders of the banned militant outfit Neo Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
“We have seen a rise in militancy from the very beginning of this year (2016) and later in middle (of the year) the militant attack on Holey Artisan Bakery. But, the scenario has totally changed after the bakery attack as the law enforcers have conducted successful drives against militants one after another and the latest one was Ashkona dragnet,” a security and strategic analyst, Maj Gen Abdur Rashid (rtd), told BSS on Sunday.
Considering the successful dragnets against the neo JMB in which many operatives of the militant organization have been captured and 35 others including some top brasses killed, he said, “We can describe 2016 as the year of success in curbing militancy.”
“We have brought under control the activities of the militants as the police have successfully stopped regrouping of the neo JMB with capturing its top leaders and killings some others,” additional commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Monirul Islam told.
Islam, also the chief of the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of DMP, said some of the top leaders of the illegal outfit were killed in security drives while many others were either sentenced to deaths or life or different jail terms.
According to police and RAB, around 40 JMB members were killed, some surrendered and some others were captured during recent drives of the law enforcers.
On the other hand, JMB’s 64 operatives were sentenced to death, 154 to life term imprisonment and 242 others to different jail terms in cases of various attacks.
Besides, law enforcers arrested 1,792 JMB men in different cases while 2,043 were charge-sheeted in different cases.
The JMB suffered a huge setback with execution of death sentences of it top leaders including Maulana Shaikh Abdur Rahman, his second-in-command Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai, military commander Ataur Rahman Sunny, think-tank Abdul Awal, Majlish-e-Sura members Khaled Saifullah and Salahuddin. “In a single incident of cross-country bomb explosions on 17.
August in 2005, a total of 161 cases were lodged accusing 660 members of the JMB. Of them, 103 cases have already been disposed of while 58 cases are under trial,” media wing director of RAB Commander Mufti Mahmud told BSS earlier.
Courts awarded death sentences to 15 JMB men, life term to 118, different terms to 116 while acquitted 118 of the charges in the cross-country bomb explosions cases, sources said.
