All the nine members of militant organisation Ansarullah Bangla Team were placed on a five-day remand yesterday, within hours of their arrest from different parts of the capital.
Inspector of the Detective Branch (DB) of Police Syed Sagir Ahmed produced them at the court of Dhaka’s Metropolitan Magistrate Shahriar Mahmud Adnan with a prayer for a 10-day remand.
In the prayer, the DB official said the detainees needed to be interrogated to glean more information about their cohorts.
The detainees are Saiful Islam, 21, Abu Hanif, 23, Aminul Islam, 25, Zahidul Islam, 27, Ali Azad, 28, Asad Ullah alias Md Pias alias Abdullah, 29, Junnun Sikder, 27, Kazi Mohammad Rezwan, 30, and Naimul Hasan, 28.
Police also seized computers, laptops, sharp weapons and various documents related to jihad from their possessions.
The lawmen claim that the detainees were close aides of Jasim Uddin Rahmania, the chief of Ansarullah Bangla Team, who was arrested on August 12 in Barguna with 30 of his associates.
Detectives produced them before the newsmen yesterday noon, but they were not allowed to speak to media. The detainees are facing charges under sections 11, 12 and 13 of the Anti-Terrorism Act in a case filed with Mohammadpur police station.
Follower of international militant organisation al-Qaeda, the newly-born outfit was carrying out its activities in four phases with a view to establish Shariah-based rule in the country by ousting the incumbent democratic government through an “armed revolution,” police say.
Jasim Uddin, also the chief of “Markajul Ulum Al Islamia” at Mohammadpur, is currently facing interrogation at the Joint Interrogation Cell in Dhaka.
DB officials said the nine detainees were from wealthy families, and of them, Junnun and Rezwan were the students of North South University. The detainees also had close links with Bangladeshi youth Nafis, who has been jailed for 30 years in the USA for planning a bomb attack in New York.
Markajul Ulum Al Islamia has been working as the umbrella organisation of all militant groups. Nafis while in Bangladesh had visited the place several times and was inspired to launch the attack in New York, say detectives.
Md Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of DB, said Rezwan and Naimul were the main associates of Jasim Uddin for computer-technology-related activities; Saiful, Zahidul and Ali Azad were engaged in the uploading of the speeches of Jasim Uddin; while Abu Hanif, Naimul and Asad were providing Jasim with information.
The official said Naimul was the brother of Ijaj Hossain, the chief of operation wing of Ansarullah Bangla Team. Ijaj had fled to Pakistan in 2008.
“Before joining the Ansarullah Bangla Team, Ijaj Hossain was the chief of Bangladesh chapter of Jama’atul Muslemin. Although he fled to Pakistan, he used to visit Bangladesh twice or thrice a year.”
According to the DB officials, the central chief of Jama’atul Muslemin is a Jordan-born British national. His name is Sheikh Abu Isa Ali Arrifai Al Hasemi al Koraishi alias Abu Isa.
He had also had visited Bangladesh in 2002 and opened an office near the NSU campus in Bashundhara Residential Area. But he returned in 2008 and was arrested by the London police the same year.
Since then, Jama’atul Muslemin has been under the watch of Bangladeshi intelligence agencies.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Monirul said: “Junnun Sikder was a student of computer science department at NSU. He later left the NSU and got admitted to the Arabic department at Darul Ihsan University in view to carry out ‘dawati’ activities.
“He also had close links to Rezowanul Azad Rana, the main planner of the killing of blogger Razib Haider,” claimed Monirul.
Razib, who had been active in the Shahbagh movement against the war criminals, was hacked to death in front of his house in Mirpur on February 15. He was labelled by Islamists as an “atheist blogger.”
Ansarullah Bangla Team works in four phases – Dawah, Idad, Ribart and Kital – to establish Shariah rules, said Monirul.
Through “Dawah,” the militants attract people in religious activities; “Idad” is a process when Ansars are formed to shelter the organisation through armed fights; “Ribart” is the way of establishing Shariah rules through guerrilla fighting and attacks on key installations or establishment as well as killing the people who would disagree with their ideologies.
If Islam is not established through jihad, then they would opt for ‘Kital,’ which means killing some specific people, said police.
They said the outfit had been planning to oust the government and establish Shariah law by carrying out attacks on different police stations and looting their arms.
Ansarullah Bangla Team was formed following the ideology of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based al-Qaeda leader who was killed in 2011 in the USA.
Earlier, the DB personnel in separate drives arrested 10 persons, including six NSU students in connection with the killing of blogger Razib. Four others, including a Dhaka University student, were also arrested for attempting to kill two other bloggers.