Md Joynal Abedin Khan :
The top leaders and motivated activists of different banned militant organizations are now trying to reorganize to operate their destructive activities amid ‘cops’ zero tolerance policy’, intelligence sources have said.
Many militants belonging to banned New Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (New-JMB), Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) have become active after getting bail from jail as law enforcers have no idea about their whereabouts, they said.
They suspect that the JMJB militants have gone into hiding and trying to collect new members and fund to operate their destructive activities.
Now militants are emerging from various classes of society. Earlier, it was thought that only Madarsa-based students were getting radicalized, but now militants are coming with higher educational backgrounds and high-profile families. Thus, the militant groups are now capable of adopting and using modern and cutting-edge technologies to execute their grisly plans, according to them.
It was in 1991 that the police first arrested a group of HUJI members from Cox’s Bazar, although the outfit came to light by organizing a programme on April 30, 1992 at the National Press Club in Dhaka.
Mentionable that HUJI attacked a cultural programme in Jessore in 1999 that left ten people dead. On April 14, 2001, the outfit conducted another attack during the Bangla New Year celebrations. Its attacks continued until 2005.
In April, 2004, JMB came to light in Rajshahi. Its first action was a series of bomb blasts in 61 districts on August 17, 2005. Members from JMB also attacked a court in Jhalakathi, killing two judges.
Ansarullah Bangla Team’s presence was known in 2013, after the death of blogger Rajeeb Haider. Investigators discovered later that the outfit was originated in the country.
In latest, the sacked army Major Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haque and Bangladesh-born Canadian citizen Tamim Chowdhury established New JMB unit in last year. The JMB took only nine years to reorganize.
The other listed organisations are Lashkar-e-Taiba, Tehrik-e-Jehad-e-Islami-Kashmiri, Harkat-ul Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jehadul Islami, Hizbul Mujahideen, Hezbe Islami, Jamiatul Mujahideen, Harkatul Ansar, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
According to media reports, at least 16 people were killed in different militant attacks in several districts in the country in last seven months.
On the other hand, a data of the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) shows that about 393 people were killed in terrorist attacks in the last eleven years.
Among the dead 360 were civilians and 33 security personnel. In addition, 243 terrorists were also killed during the period, it said.
The data shows that the highest number of killings occurred in 2013, when 246 civilians and security personnel and 133 terrorists were killed.
Twenty five were killed in 2005, six in 2006, one in 2007, one in 2008, three in 2010, one in 2012, 38 in 2014, 25 in 2015 and 46 in 2016. The number of deaths has thus been increasing since 2013.
Data from the SATP shows that the first major militant attack in Bangladesh was reported in 1996, when Shanti Bahini rebels abducted and killed 30 Bengali settlers in Rangamati district on September 11. Since then, incidents have increased and so have fatalities.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal claimed in a programme in Bhola on Saturday that there was no existence of Al Qaeda or IS in the country. However, some terrorists are here those can be stopped by law enforcing agencies.
Stating that the people do not like militancy, the minister said Bangladeshi people is religious but not fanatic. They also prevent militancy responding to the urge of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Contacted, Professor Dr Zia Rahman, Chairman of Dhaka University’s Criminology Department, told The New Nation on Saturday that the rise of militancy starts since the 1990s.
The problem can be solved if gaps in the intelligence agencies are plugged and social, familial and educational changes are brought about, he said.
Security analyst Major General (Retd) Abdur Rashid said, “The early militant attacks in the country were inspired by the HUJI. Later, JMB came into being. As a result of the drives by law enforcers, the JMB split and the ABT, was born.”
AKM Shahidul Hoque, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), said they had found involvement of the New-JMB members in a good number of murder incidents since last year, especially in the city and the country’s northern region.
“Although JMB’s top leaders, including Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai, were executed, the JMB is still active,” he said.
Monirul Islam, chief of Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crimes (CTTC) unit, said that they were collecting information from the grassroots about the Neo-JMB and other militant organizations.
