Intelligence agencies have prepared a list of organisations red-flagged for possible ties to terrorism, as a task force to track down terrorist funding in Bangladesh commenced operations, law enforcement sources said.
An official of the Detective Branch of Police, speaking on condition of anonymity, said intelligence agencies had compiled the list of seven private banks, 11 insurance companies, a number of educational institutes as well as several foreign and local NGOs reportedly involved in funnelling funds to militant groups.
A high official working on the task force told the Dhaka Tribune Monday that a database to track the entry and exit of foreign nationals was being compiled.
A database was also being compiled to keep track of suspicious financial transactions, including via hundi, mobile banking, courier services and other means, the official added.
He said Bangladeshi detectives do not yet have proof linking any specific NGO to militant outfits.
But two years ago, the government shut down operations of three NGOs in Cox’s Bazar – France-based Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Action Against Hunger, and the UK-based Muslim Aid – asking them not to work on the Rohingya community.
Apart from these, operations of Al-Harmain Islamic Foundation and Rabita Al Alam Al-Islam were suspended in Bangladesh in 2004 and 2007 for suspected militant funding.
Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation was active in Bangladesh since it opened an office in Cox’s Bazar in 1992 to help Rohingya refugees. It opened an office in Dhaka in 1995 and ran four orphanages in Uttara, Nilphamari and Gazipur and 60 mosques across the country. It spread its network to 38 districts and received a five-year grant of Tk19.27 crore until 2001.
Rabita Al Alam Al-Islam’s country director was Mir Quasem Ali, treasurer of Jamaat-e-islami now accused of war crimes. The NGO played a significant role after 1971 in helping repatriate stranded Pakistanis to Punjab after the Liberation War.
Sanowar Hossain, chief of the counter-terrorism unit and additional deputy commissioner of DB police, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that investigations have yielded information about militant funding, including clues about support from local and foreign organisations.
He said while militants used bank accounts to move funds in the past, their modus operandi have now changed, he said.
Rawnak Mahmud, a director of the NGO Affairs Bureau, said his office did not have a list of NGOs suspected of ties to militants.
“As of December 2, we have prepared a list of 503 NGOs whose registrations have been cancelled as they were not renewed. It was not about militancy,” he said.
A major player in militant activity was the country’s refugee Rohingya community, he said.
Chittagong police recently arrested five Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) members including Global Rohingya Centre Vice-President Mohammad Alam for suspected involvement in planning a militant attack.
The Global Rohingya Centre opened its most recent branch in New Delhi last September and was reportedly planning to open a branch in Bangladesh.
Kushum Dewan, deputy commissioner of Chittagong DB police, said police were analysing the statements made by the arrestees in two sessions of a total of nine days’ remand, he said.
According to a high official of the Chittagong police, they had collected Tk25cr from two Jeddah residents and were working to raise up to Tk50cr in aid of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation.
Residents of South Africa reportedly also sent large sums of money to their accounts. Meanwhile, a three-day US state department-sponsored workshop on countering terrorist funding is being held in the capital.
Asked whether the conference had been arranged apprehending Bangladesh was in imminent danger of an attack, participant Faiz Sobhan, research director of the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, said: “The US embassy routinely organises such programmes around the world.”
Bangladesh is one of the countries that has fought terrorism successfully, he added.
