Staff Reporter :
The government has outlawed the Ansar al-Islam, the Bangladesh chapter of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which was responsible for over a dozen of attacks on secularists and LGBT rights activists in the last couple of years.
The Ministry of Home Affairs issued the notification on Sunday labelling the outfit as a militant group for anti-state activities and for threat to public security.
Ansar al-Islam, thus becomes the seventh militant group in the country facing sanction, the gazette said.
Following the decision, Ansar al-Islam will not be allowed to hold meetings, bring out processions and to preach its ideologies. Such activities would be termed as anti-state and law enforcers would take legal action under the Anti-Terrorism Act, police said.
al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden’s successor, Egyptian ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri, announced the formation of AQIS in September 2014 to carry the group’s fight in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and with a special focus on the Rakhine State of Myanmar.
The US government blacklisted the AQIS as a “foreign terrorist organisation” and its leader, Indian-born Asim Umar, a “specially designated global terrorist” in a statement issued on June 30 last year.
Ansar al-Islam claimed responsibilities, through Twitter, Telegram channels and other websites, for 13 attacks between January 2013 and April 25, 2016, in which 11 war crimes trial campaigners and secularists were killed while five others sustained critical injuries.
Earlier, Shahadat-e-al Hikma was banned on February 9, 2003, Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) on February 23, 2005, and Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (Huji) on October 17, 2005. Hizb ut-Tahrir was also banned on October 22, 2009 and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) on May 25, 2015.
