Law enforcement and intelligence agencies do not have information on the whereabouts of at least 192 militants – some of them trained explosives experts – who got bail in the last few years.
As part of the efforts to dig the reason behind the recent spike in militancy in the country, law enforcers have been trying to trace these militant leaders and activists.
Unofficial sources suggest that many of them have illegally crossed the border and fled to India’s West Bengal.
The matter was discussed on Sunday in the weekly meeting of the cabinet committee on law and order at the secretariat.
Police headquarters data shows that in 2015, a total of 70 cases were registered with various police stations across the country and 235 militants and their sympathisers arrested.
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) – the agency tasked with handling militancy – arrested nearly 1,300 people until December 2015 since its inception in 2004. RAB also recovered 128 firearms, 3,500 bullets, 638 grenades and 2,011kg explosive substances and a large number of jihadi books during the period.
Police and its various detective branches, known as DB, arrested nearly another 1,000 suspected militants and sympathisers over this period.
Case study
In November 2009, the Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) arrested Abu Motaleb alias Motu along with one of his associates at Motijheel in the capital city.
During trial at a special judge’s court of Dhaka after remand, Motu gave a confessional statement that he was an operative of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
He also confessed that he is a bomb-making expert wanted in Pakistan for plotting an attack on the Indian and US embassies and fought in war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Motu secured bail from the High Court in mid-2012. He attended a couple of hearings after that but has remained traceless since the start of 2013. The court had issued an arrest warrant against him and police are still looking for him.
When contacted, Motu’s lawyer Faruq Ahmed said: “Motu used to contact me over phone for a few months after he got bail. But I have not been in touch with him since. I contacted his relatives several times but they have not responded.”
How they get bail
Thanks to loopholes in law, weak investigation and procrastination in trial, more than 450 of those militants have managed to get bail, sources said.
Most of them have been put in jail in cases filed by police with lower courts under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which does not have a provision for bail. However, the lower courts do not have the jurisdiction to grant bails in such cases.
Existing regulations bind police to file charge sheets in anti-terrorism act cases within 180 days of filing. But police never manage to file charge sheets within the stipulated time.
Moreover, when the accused persons move the High Court, seeking bail, police have no role to play; usually public prosecutors handle such cases on behalf of the state.
In the absence of a charge sheet, the public prosecutors have very little to say when the accused person cook up stories of personal or family crises and seek bail on humanitarian grounds. As a result, the HC grants them bail.
According to law enforcement agencies, most of the militants who have disappeared after securing bail are members of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI-B), Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Ansarullah Bangla Team, Hijb ut-Tahrir and local followers of Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The blame game
Seeking anonymity, a highly placed source inside police said: “It is literally impossible to submit charge sheet in cases filed under the anti-terrorism act in just 180 days.”
After arresting a suspected militant, law enforcement agencies usually place him on remand. During interrogation, the suspect mentions the names and addresses of some of his associates.
“But because militants keep changing their locations continuously, police hardly ever trace those associates. As a result, charge sheets cannot be filed within the stipulated time,” the source said.
Eventually, when bail orders from the HC reaches the jail, the authorities release the suspected militants.
Another highly placed source from the police headquarters told the Dhaka Tribune: “This is happening because there is no coordination between police and jail authorities.
“It is the jail authorities’ duty to inform local police or intelligence agencies before releasing any militant or top criminal on bail.”
However, when contacted, the jail authorities denied having any such duty.
Jahangir Kabir, senior super of Dhaka Central Jail, said: “We only check the documents sent from the court. If police inform us about any particular inmate, we have no problem in informing them.”
Police spokesperson Monirul Islam, also head of the DMP’s Detective Branch, said: “Police have nothing to do if anyone gets bail from courts.”
He also said that they have information that militants are trying to regroup after coming out on bail. “We are now searching for their hideouts and arrest them again.”
