5 top militants may be hiding in India

At least five listed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militants, including the mastermind of Gulshan terror attack which claimed 24 lives, is suspected to be hiding in India, reports the Times of India. One of them is Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, a native of Sylhet and a former expatriate in Canada who is believed to be the coordinator of Islamic State (IS) in the country, said the report published on Friday. The other four are Junoon Sikdar, Najibullah Ansari, ATM Tajuddin and Bangladesh-born Japanese citizen Mohammad Saifulla Ojaki. According to the Times of India, the quintet may have entered the Indian territory by crossing “the porous border.” They are among the 68 individuals whose names were disclosed by Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) as missing persons a few days ago. The list contains individuals aging between 15 and 40 years who have been suspiciously missing since 2011. According to sources, Tamim, who is also known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, left Canada in 2013 and could not traced after that. His interview appeared in the June 2016 issue of Dabiq – the propaganda magazine published by IS. Junoon, who is originally from Comilla and was a computer science student in a private university in Dhaka, was arrested by police in 2009 under the Anti-Terrorism Act. He was again arrested in 2013 for his alleged links with Ansarullah Bangla Team, the offshoot of the al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. A known recruiter of the jihadi group, he was later released on bail and left for Malaysia. Najibullah, a native of Chapainawabganj, went to Malaysia to study marine engineering. Last year, his father filed a general diary with Chittagong police after Nazibullah wrote to his brother that he had decided to join IS and move to Iraq. Tajuddin, who was studying computer engineering at a US-based university, went missing in 2013. A general diary was filed with Lakshmipur Sadar police station earlier this month. Ojaki, alias Sujit Debnath, a professor of business administration at Asia Pacific University, Japan, has been missing for a year. His father Janardan Debnath filed a general diary in this regard in Nabinagar. The Times of India also reported that Assam police busted a JMB camp two months ago in Chirang district, which was used for training local youths.