At least 50 activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir trained on technology from abroad have actively been carrying out over one hundred blog sites and Facebook pages since 2010 to promote Jamaat-e-Islami's propaganda among Bangladeshis across the world, detectives say.
All the tech-savvy operatives of Chhatra Shibir, Jamaat's student front, maintain several email accounts and Facebook profiles while act as administrators of the pages which have been involved in spreading propaganda and inciting violent attacks against the government.
Detectives have come up with such information after interrogating KM Ziauddin Fahad, a Chhatra Shibir leader who is believed to be chief editorial administrator of Facebook page Basherkella.
Yesterday was the second day of his eight-day remand in police custody.
According to intelligence sources, analysing the Facebook statuses of Fahad, they have traced some profiles suspected for inciting violence. The detectives are now trying to trace location of those instigators.
Chhatra Shibir's online activities increased significantly in 2013 when the International Crimes Tribunal started delivering verdicts in war crimes cases, in which mostly the top leaders of the party that sided with the Pakistani occupation forces in 1971 were tried.
After the tribunals pronounced verdicts in the cases against senior Jamaat leaders Abdul Quader Molla and Delawar Hossain Sayedee early 2013, the Chhatra Shibir supporters started inciting violent attacks on law enforcers, state properties and pro-liberation people through some Facebook pages having no direct mention about the persons behind the scene.
Those pages also posted photos and false information about the prime minister, ministers, media personalities, bloggers and war crimes activists provoking their fans, mainly those who support Jamaat-Shibir, to kill them. Moreover, supporting the radical Islamist platform Hefazat-e-Islam, these pages also tried to establish that the government was acting against the innocent Muslims of the country.
Detectives say their main agenda is to create chaos by misleading the ordinary Muslims.
Key ally of the 20-party combine, Jamaat's acceptance dropped sharply among many at home and abroad after the Awami League-led government took office in 2009 as it began trial of war criminals. Moreover, the High Court in 2013 declared Jamaat's registration illegal as its party charter contradicts with the country's constitution.
Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of the Detective Branch of police, told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have came to know that at least 50 people, who are expert in technology, have been controlling the administrative activities of social media pages run by Jamaat-Shibir.”
He said the detectives had learnt about such activities first in 2010. “At that time, we got information that 30 Chhatra Shibir men took training on technology from abroad,” Monirul, also the DMP spokesperson, said.
A large portion of Chhatra Shibir leaders and activists are now engaged in cyber crimes. “We are making a list of the key leaders and will launch drives shortly to arrest them,” Monirul said. He, however, could not confirm the source of funds.
Usually, the Chhatra Shibir men open fake Facebook profiles with photos of attractive women and send requests to people randomly. Once getting a significant number of friends, they start sharing posts of the Chhatra Shibir's pages and blog sites, Monirul explains.
Identifying the anti-Jamaat profiles, the online activists of Chhatra Shibir also report those profiles and their posts collectively prompting the Facebook authorities to delete those posts and put restrictions, the DB chief added.