Home ›› 15 Aug 2021 ›› Governance
Some Bangladeshis are going to Afghanistan to join the Taliban, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Shafiqul Islam said on Saturday.
The DMP commissioner said this while visiting Bangabandhu Memorial Museum on road 32 of Dhanmondi in Dhaka ahead of the National Mourning Day.
“Taliban has urged people to join the war in Afghanistan. Some Bangladeshis already left the country to join the war. We guess some people were caught in India and some others are trying to reach Afghanistan on foot,” he added.
Bangladeshi militants are linked to the Taliban for years, especially from the time of the Soviet invasion of the country in the 1980s.
Alleged Afghan returnee Mufti Abdul Hannan formed Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) in early 1992 along with others and carried out several attacks on secular activists, foreigners and politicians, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Hannan was executed in 2017 for a grenade attack in 2004 on the then-British ambassador to Dhaka, Anuar Choudhury.
The DMP chief said militants were trying to regroup in Bangladesh in recent months but police remained alert to thwart any subversive activities.
He did not rule out the possibility of the act of terrorism on National Mourning Day, adding that police took all precautionary steps against it.
“We are not ruling it (militant activities) out. We will try our best to avert this kind of incident,” he said.
