Home ›› 22 Oct 2022 ›› Front
Separatist organisation Kuki Chin National Front (KNF) is training members of the new militant group “Jamatul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya” in the Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT) against a monthly payment deal, claims Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
As per the agreement, which was reached following a meeting between KNF founder Nathan Bawm and the militant group in 2021, Jamatul Ansar pays KNF Tk 3 lakh per month and also bears the food expenses of all KNF personnel training its members. The training is supposed to continue until 2023.
RAB’s Legal and Media Wing Director Commander Khandaker Al Moin revealed the information at a press briefing on Friday, after the elite force on Thursday night arrested 10 people, including seven Jamatul Ansar members and three members of KNF’s military wing.
He said RAB earlier arrested 12 others during separate raids in Munshiganj, Narayanganj, Mymensingh, and Dhaka’s Jatrabari and Keraniganj on October 6 and 10, following an investigation into missing youths who had left their homes to join the recently discovered Islamist group.
Based on their findings, RAB learned that some members of several banned militant outfits, including Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Ansar al-Islam and Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami, got together in 2017 and floated Jamatul Ansar in 2019, Moin said.
RAB also learned that at least 55 people have left their homes after being motivated by militants in the last two years. Of them, 38 are reportedly staying in remote areas of CHT and many of them have undergone various training, he added.
He said they have shared the information with the intelligence and law enforcement agencies and joint operations are underway to arrest them. The latest 10 were arrested by RAB during raids in Bandarban’s Rowangchhari Bazar area and Saijampara of Rangamati’s Bilaichhari on Thursday night.
Of these arrestees, Syed Maruf Ahmed alias Manik, Imran Hossain alias Shaon, Kawsar alias Shishir, Jahangir Ahmed alias Jonu, Md Ibrahim alias Ali, Abu Bakr Siddique alias Bappi, Rufu Mia are members of Jamatul Ansar.
The other three — Jouthan Sang Bawm, Stephen Bawm and Mal Som Bawm — are members of KNF, which is also known as the Bawm Party.
During the raids, nine guns, 50 rounds of bullets, 62 cartridge cases, six improvised explosive devices or IEDs, two cartridge belts, one locally made pistol, other local weapons, walkie-talkies, other equipment and 10 proposed maps of so-called Kuki-Chin State (which KNF aims to establish) were seized.
After preliminary questioning, RAB learned that more than 50 men are receiving training in different areas of CHT. One Md Anisur Rahman alias Mahmud is the current Ameer or chief of the Jamatul Ansar, Commander Moin said.
He also said that this extremist group’s Majlis-e-Shura (Supreme Council) has six members who are in charge of the recruiting, military, finance, media and advisory wings.
Abdullah Maimun heads the recruiting wing; Maskur Rahman heads the military wing with Maruf Ahmed as his second-in-command; Mosharraf Hossain heads the finance and media wings; and Shamim Mahfuz serves as the chief adviser, training supervisor and the head of Shaykh Alem Wing in Bhola.
Moin said the militants chose the remote areas of Bandarban and Rangamati to secretly conduct different types of training, including firearms and weapon handling, to maintain secrecy and that is why they took help from the local separatist organisation KNF.
They communicate with other Jamatul Ansar members in different parts of the country using different social media platforms and apps, he added.
The RAB official said their efforts to find and arrest the leaders and members of both groups are still ongoing.
