Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s (DMP) Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit has arrested eight NGO employees for their alleged involvement in militant financing and for being linked to the banned militant outfit Ansar-al-Islam—formerly known as Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT).
They were arrested from their Mirpur DOHS office in Dhaka on Wednesday night. Law enforcement officers recovered Tk14 lakh, a laptop, eight CPUs and 10 mobile phones from their possession.
They arrested men have been identified as – Safwanur Rahman, 34, Sultan Mahmud, 25, Md Nazrul Islam, 38, Md Abu Taher, 36, Md Ilias Mridha, 30, Md Ashraful Alam, 24, Hasnaine, 30, and Md Kamrul, 28.
DMP Deputy Commissioner (media) Masudur Rahman confirmed their arrest and said: “They were working for an NGO named Small Kindness Bangladesh (SKB) and they all are involved with the banned militant outfit Asmallnsar-al-Islam.”
He said that the NGO was being operated by Ansar-al-Islam to raise funds under the guise of a humanitarian cause of the Rohingyas in the camps but was using the money to spread extremist and fundamentalist ideologies in the camps.
CTTC sources said that the SKB has strong ties to the Pakistan-based Al-Khidmat Foundation that has links to al-Qaeda and Laskar-e-Taiba.
The arrested men have also been accused of actively recruiting new members from the Rohingya camps, the sources added.
In August, SKB was banned by the NGO Bureau for financing militant activities and for anti-state activities.
SKB has been found to collect donations from different Islamic organizations around the world including Pakistan, Turkey, Philippines, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia along with local fund-raising.
