RAB foils two militant couples’ Pak travel plans

According to RAB, several such groups of four to five members are now staying in Dhaka’s adjacent districts as different law enforcement agencies have been carrying out drives to arrest militants following the Gulshan and Sholakia terror attacks in July. One couple – Aminul Islam, 34, and his wife Nahid Sultana, 30 – was assisting the other members of the outfit to flee the country by processing their passports and visa-related documents. The two others detained are Shariful Islam alias Sultan Mahmud Tapas alias Mahmud, 18, and his wife Marzia Akter Shumi, 19. The four were traced and arrested after Shumi’s father Monsur Ali Sheikh filed a complaint with the elite force stating that his daughter had been missing since August 20. A team of RAB 2 arrested Mahmud, Shumi and Aminul from a restaurant opposite to Ananda Cinema Hall at Farmgate around 12:30am yesterday on a tip-off. Based on information provided by them, RAB detained Nahid from a residence in Narayanganj’s Fatulla area. Nahid passed Masters’ in botany from Tolaram College in Narayanganj, Pabna’s Shumi was a second year honours student while Mahmud was the first year honours student of a college at Uttara. Hailing from Sherpur, Aminul, who ditched his first wife to marry Nahid without permission, was dropped out while studying in class VIII. RAB’s Legal and Media Wing chief Mufti Mahmud Khan at a press briefing yesterday claimed that the documents recovered during the drives showed that the couples had been preparing to go to Pakistan. He said that Aminul and Nahid were senior members of the group. They used to help the other members of the outfit go abroad. “They also contributed in the post-recruitment procedure of the New JMB group and used to assign members in different squads,” the RAB official said, adding that the four were members of a squad ready for conducting any attack. Sources in the police say in the last few years, several dozen individuals have gone to Syria and Iraq, some along with their families, from Bangladesh through other countries especially Pakistan, Malaysia and Turkey to join the Islamic State. Dhaka’s college student Golam Faizullah Fahim, one of the three militants who hacked a Hindu college teacher in Madaripur in June, was close to the two couples arrested yesterday. Aminul and Mahmud had confessed during primary interrogation that the duo along with Fahim had been trained at different parts of the country, Mufti Mahmud said. Fahim, who was caught by locals while fleeing after the attack on lecturer Ripon Chakrabarty, was killed in a “gunfight” with police on June 18, on the first day of his 10-day remand. “Aminul and Nahid got married recently. Fahim attended the function and acted as their legal guardian. We have got the evidence,” he added.RAB got info on New JMB high-upsThe elite force claims that they have received some information about the financiers, planners of attacks and organisers of the New JMB. The Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit, a DMP wing investigating the recent militant attacks, also claims that they have learnt about the persons involved with the group. Around a dozen members of the outfit including Gulshan attack mastermind Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury have been killed during raids and gunfights with the police in the last two months. RAB’s Mufti Mahmud yesterday said that the group collects funds from its members and other sources abroad. Two of the financiers are Sohel alias Adnan and Ashraful alias Siddique. RAB, however, could not confirm whether it is the same Sohel identified by the law enforcers as the alleged bomb supplier for the Gulshan attack. From the massaging app used by the couples, RAB has found the name of Mehedi Hasan Rony who could be a financier of the group. The elite force has also got the names of some leaders – Afif, Kaif, Jaishan and Mofiz – who used to motivate the potential recruits through Facebook. Mahmud’s wife Shumi was also motivated by them.