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Hiding in hills
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aged 18 to 32 while the identities of the rest 17 were still unverified.
At the briefing, the Rab said the 55 are from 19 districts and have joined a newly formed militant outfit called “Jama’atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya”.
Without mentioning any specific insurgent group, officials said separatists provide food supply and shelter to the militants in exchange of money.
The Jama’atul Ansar was formed by former members of three home-grown militant organisations -- Harkat-ul-Jihad Bangladesh, Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Ansar Al Islam, they added.
“Under the shelter of one or two separatist groups, the outfit members have been receiving training and running organisational activities from hideouts in remotest areas of the Chattogram Hill Tracts,” Commander Khandaker Al Moin, director of Rab’s Legal and Media Wing, told journalists.
At the briefing, Rab said they arrested 12 people, including seven “missing” youths, over their involvement with the outfit. After interrogating them, it claimed to have learned about the outfit and the 55 hiding in the hills.
Of the 12, five including the outfit’s financial aid provider Shah Md Habibullah alias Habib, 32, were arrested during drives in Dhaka’s Jatrabari and Keraniganj on Sunday.
The four other arrestees are Neyamat Ullah, 43, a teacher at a Cumilla madrasa, Md Hossain, 22, an electrician, Rakib Hasnat alias Niloy, 28, a delivery boy of a courier service provider, and Saiful Islam, 19, a mason.
Habibullah’s latest occupation was as an imam of Kuba Mosque in Cumilla. For two years before this, he ran a residential madrasa in Naikhongchhari.
The man joined the militant outfit in 2020 and so far, he has managed to recruit around 15 to 20 members and send them to training. He used to collect donations under various names and then send the money to the outfit’s fund, Commander Moin said.
Neyamat joined the outfit in 2019 and he was involved in coordinating and giving shelter to the youths leaving homes to join militancy.
Drawn to militancy, Hossain left home a year back, Saiful one and half months back, and Rakib two months back.
On October 6, Rab claimed to have arrested seven others, including four “missing” youths from Munshiganj, Narayanganj, and Mymensingh.
Rab has arrested the seven following information from Shartaz Islam Niloy, 22, who had gone missing from Cumilla on August 23 and returned to his Kolyanpur home on September 1.
Commander Moin said this outfit targets youths and radicalises them after showing various videos of the “persecution of Muslims” and giving different misinterpretations of Islam.
The outfit provides vocational training to its recruits in various fields like carpentry, painting and electrical work to help them run organisational activities under disguise, he added.
“We are now at the primary stage of investigation and we are yet to get any idea about who is leading the newly formed outfit. We are working to find out the top financiers and top leadership. A joint operation is now underway with other agencies in hilly areas to arrest the outfit members.”

Man ‘picked up’
FROM PAGE 12
“Maybe Nurul orchestrated the whole thing to go into hiding since there is an arrest warrant against him.”
OC Rafiq told The Daily Star that Nurul had two cases filed against him regarding a land dispute in his village in Satkhira’s Ashashuni of Satkhira. The cases were related to violence and assault.
However, a press release sent by Rab-15 late last night said Nurul is accused in two cases from 2015 under the anti-terrorism act filed with Chattogram’s Banshkhali and Hathazari police stations.
The statement claimed that Nurul, as a terrorist, used to radicalise youths and run a training centre in Banshkhali, adding that he was seeking to reorganise a terrorist outfit called “Amir Hamza Brigade”.
It further said he had previously been arrested in 2009 in Bandarban’s Naikhongchhari and spent a month in jail.