RAB personnel yesterday claimed to have arrested a youth for publicising the “audio clip of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri” by uploading it in different websites over a month ago, which came into notice on Saturday.
Apart from having al-Qaeda links, the RAB officials said the youth had also sent super-imposed fake photographs regarding the rally of Hefazat-e-Islam on May 5 and 6 last year to the president of Iran on May 7 through an e-mail titled “Mass killing on protesters in Dhaka at night by armed joint force at least killed thousands.”
Identified as Rasel Bin Sattar Khan, a final year student of jute technology department at Tangail Textile Institute, the youth was arrested early yesterday at a mess in Majhipara area under Mirzapur upazila of Tangail.
RAB said they had recovered three mobile phones, two laptops and some jihadi books from his possession. Rasel is the son of Abdus Sattar Khan of Kaliganj in Gazipur.
After the arrest, the 21-year-old youth was taken to Dhaka and a press briefing was held at the RAB headquarters in Uttara. The detainee was allowed to speak before the media.
Rasel said: “I am responsible for the publicity of the clip.
“I got notification about it from a Facebook page ‘Dawa illallah’ after I liked the page. Later I posted it on two pages – amardeshvabna.blogspot.com and islameralo.wordpress.com.
“I liked the page since I have interests in Islamic sites,” he said.
Col Ziaul Ahsan, additional director general of RAB (operations), said: “Rasel is the main receiver and propagator of the clip. He is also the admin of ‘Basherkella,’ a page of Islami Chhatra Shibir on Facebook.”
He said Rasel’s activities showed that he had connections with al-Qaeda and international militancy. “He was also working as their agent.”
“Basherkella” having over 6,50,000 subscribers was surfaced after youths launched the unprecedented movement at Shahbagh in February last year demanding death sentence for all war criminals and a ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and its students’ wing Chhatra Shibir. The page has been campaigning against the war trial and instructed supporters how to attack the government and the pro-liberation people on the streets during demonstrations of the then 18-party alliance.
According to RAB officials, the audio clip (in Arabic, having subtitles in English and photographs in the footage) was first uploaded in “Dawa illallah” over two and a half months ago at 6:30am on November 30 last year.
“But it was publicised in Bangladesh after Rasel uploaded it in different websites on January 14,” Ziaul said.
He, however, said they were yet to confirm whether the voice in the clip was of Zawahiri. “We are verifying it.”
According to the senior Rab official, “Dawa illallah” is maintained by a Pakistan-based organisation named “Bala Media.”
Ziaul said after Rasel uploaded the clip in the YouTube on January 14, it was also uploaded in another website named Jihadology.net the same day.
“Though he is a student of jute technology, Rasel has expertise in Information Technology. He is seriously active in Facebook and blogging and uses several IDs.”
Rasel also maintained different other pages including “drishtivongi” and “gonotontranipatjak” in which he had uploaded bomb making tips, said the RAB official.