68.7% arrested militants aged between 15-34 years: CTTC

Around 68.7 per cent of the militants arrested in Bangladesh are aged between 15-34 years, according to a research conducted by the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC).

The CTTC came to the conclusion after questioning 512 people arrested in the last six years. The CTTC official revealed the information at a training workshop titled ‘Role of Media Personnel in Preventing Extremism’ in Dhaka’s CIRDAP auditorium on Sunday.

Assistant Commissioner (AC) of the CTTC Nazmul Islam in his presentation said a large part of the risk for terrorism is posed by 14-15-year-old people.

It also found that 9.4 per cent of those were aged between 35 and 39 years and 8 per cent between 40 and 44 years.

Reviewing the educational background, it was found that 73.2 per cent were motivated from the general educational background followed by 23 per cent from madrasa background, 2.1 per cent from vocational and 1.6 per cent are illiterate, he said. About the present trend of terrorism in Bangladesh, this official said, there is extensive use of social media for radicalization.

“We found 46 per cent terror suspects were graduated from universities while 82 per cent terrorists were inspired from social media.”

According to the UNDP, social media users are vulnerable to radicalization.

However, incidents of Islamist militancy relented in 2020-21 compared to 2016-17. According to the ranking of the global terrorism index (GTI), Bangladesh’s position is 40th, the USA 28th and the UK 31st while Afghanistan tops the list.

India’s position (12th) is worse than Bangladesh. Pakistan comes to be at 10th and Sri Lanka at 25th, Nazmul said.

Chief of CTTC Md Asaduzzaman said Bangladesh’s position had come down to 40 from 33. Last year not a single incident of militant attack took place. It is the contribution of the CTTC as well as the police, he said.