Sagar Biswas :More than 500 militants, suspected operators of different Islamist terrorist outfits, who have so far been come out of jail in the last three years, started to regroup again posing potential threat to state security.Security officials suspected that some of the said militants might have been involved directly or indirectly in the recent terror attacks in different parts of the country, including Gulshan and Sholakia.Deputy Inspector General, Police Bureau of Investigation [PBI], Banaj Kumar Majumdar on Thursday said: “We’re anxious seeing that the militants are coming out of jail getting bail……Of course, we’ve taken the matter seriously and started working on the issue.” Of the recently released terrors, three were members of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahedin Bangladesh [JMB] killing squad who were involved in murdering a Peer storming his Gopibagh residence in 2013. Two of them got freedom on April 26 and one was released on June 24 this year, official sources said.Several police officials opined that the relevant law should be amended keeping adjustment with current militancy crisis and the bail procurement of militants must be stopped till the end of trial.”The law enforcement agencies are nabbing suspected militants, but they are coming out of the jail getting bail from relevant courts, and going vanished. This trend is solely responsible for current militancy situation,” said another senior police official of the Police Headquarters preferring to remain anonymous. On the other hand, some lawyers related with prosecution said that the militants are coming out mainly due to defected charge-sheets, absence of their names in the complaint and irregular presence of the witnesses.But refuting the claim, some criminal lawyers said that the prosecution and police both were responsible for rampant bail procurement of militants and high-profile criminals.When contacted, Attorney General Mahabubey Alam told The New Nation: “Several hundreds of people get bail everyday in our over populated country. The militants are taking the advantage. Besides, the role of police, submission of weak FIR [first information report] and low level punishment have appeared as vital reasons for the quick bail procurement of militants.”The Attorney General, however, said that it needs to harden the existing law increasing the level of punishment to tackle the militancy crisis. “Getting bail by the militants is a very old practice. A top-ranking militant Mowlana Tajuddin, arrested in the specific August 24 grenade attack case, was released from jail and sent abroad giving protection to the airport……In the same way, some of our people are helping militants to come out of the jail,” he said. It is worth to mention that security forces in 2012 arrested four members of Asarullah Bangla Team [ABT] -Kawser Hossain, Sad Al Nahian, Kamal Hossain Sardar and Kamal Uddin – in connection with the murder attempt on freethinker and blogger Asif Mohiuddin.The arrestees gave confessional statement before the court admitting their involvement in the incident. But all of them were released getting bail next year. In 2015, three of them except Kamal Uddin were arrested again for their alleged involvement in blogger Niladri murder.There is another example where two alleged militants Samiul and Yahiya along with three other members of Hamza Brigade were released getting bail from relevant courts on January 16, May 7, June 7 and 20 this year. Following the same way, JMB operative Abu Hafiz came of the jail on May 4. Three Hajbut Tahrir men were released on April 20. Harkat -ul Jihad al Islami [HuJI] member Abdullah Al Mamun got bail on April 13 and Abul Kalam on April 20.Interestingly, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies do not have information on their whereabouts though some of them are highly trained explosives experts and believed to be linked with recent terror attacks in different parts of the country. There is widespread speculation that a number of bailed militants have taken shelter in the neighbouring countries taking advantage of relaxed mood of law enforcers. Recently, several members of JMB were caught in different states of India, including West Bengal, during raids by security forces.”Usually, we check the documents sent from the court. If police inform us about any particular prisoner, we can take step against him. I fact, we have nothing to do if anyone gets bail from courts,” Md Jahangir Kabir, senior super of Dhaka Central Jail, said.
