Around two dozens of AK22 rifles have been recovered from Chittagong and Dhaka in the last couple of years including three from the Holey Artisan Bakery at Gulshan where Islamist militants killed 23 people, mostly foreigners, on the night of July 1.
The latest recovery was made at the Narayanganj den of the New JMB, a faction of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh responsible for series of attacks since last year, where its alleged main coordinator Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury was killed in a raid on August 27.
Earlier militants used machetes and small arms in attacks alongside hand bombs, grenades and IEDs. But they tend to use AK22 rifles to carry out massacres.
Investigators say terrorists prefer this rifles since they are similar to the AK47 rifles, easily available, handy, cheap and less noisy.
Sources in the DMP’s Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit, the agency investigating militancy issues, say most of these rifles were sent from Dubai and entered Bangladesh through Chittagong and Rajshahi borders with India and Myanmar.
These are meant for carrying out deadly terrorist attacks, not for conducting small crimes, they say.
Monirul Islam, chief of the CTTC unit, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had got some information regarding the suppliers and financiers of these arms, but were yet to make any arrest.
Apparently, the AK22 rifles look similar to the much-known AK47 rifles. The Romania-made AK22 rifles weighing around 3kgs can fire 21-34 bullets at a time. As it is not legally sold in Bangladesh, its price in black market ranges between Tk300,000 and Tk400,000.
According to police sources, the first AK22 rifle was recovered at Raozan, Chittagong on August 11, 2008. Police’s elite force Rapid Action Battalion made the recovery.
The second recovery was made on July 10, 2013. Members of the Chittagong Metropolitan Police sized one rifle from Moizzyartek area, but failed to arrest anyone.
On April 29 the following year, an AK22 rifle, magazines and bullets were seized by the police from an abandoned bag at Kamalapur Railway Station. It was sent from Chittagong.
At least 13 AK22 rifles were seized along from Chittagong district last year. Most of those were bought by militant group Shahid Hamza Brigade.
Only one person involved in trading of these rifles was arrested in these incidents.
Police's elite force RAB recovers three AK22 rifles among other firearms and bullets from a militant den in a remote area of Lotmoni hill under Banshkhali upazila, Chittagong on February 22, 2015A high official of the CTTC unit quoting arrested New JMB militants said that the terrorists preferred AK22 rifles due to unavailability of AK47 rifles – used commonly by international militant groups including the Islamic State. These rifles can be easily folded and carried in small backpacks.
Investigators suspect that the New JMB has still got nearly a dozen AK22 rifles in their possessions.
Sanowar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of the CTTC unit, said that the militants might have collected a number of such rifles to conduct attacks. “Drives to arrest the militants and recover the arms are under way,” he added.
“Some Indian insurgent groups and local militant outfits are bringing weapons from the north-eastern states of India,” says a high official of a law enforcement agency, seeking anonymity.
Lt Col Miftah Uddin Ahmed, commanding officer of RAB 7 in Chittagong, told the Dhaka Tribune earlier that an arms dealer named Mozaher Hossain Mia of Satkania, a leader of Hamza Brigade, had been the key supplier of weapons including AK22 rifles.
“Some of those arms were brought for Hamza Brigade,” he said, adding that most of those arms and ammunition had been recovered in drives.
Mozaher collected the arms from a man in Rangamati, who reportedly smuggled those in from India, Myanmar and China.