JMB planned sabotage to send message, says RAB

Outlawed militant outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) wanted to send a message that it is in business by carrying out subversive acts, RAB says.

The elite police unit made the claim at a press conference on Friday at its headquarters in Dhaka on arresting five JMB operatives and recovering bombs and explosives from them earlier in the day in Sirajganj.

RAB Legal and Media Wing Director Mufti Mahmud Khan said: “Bombs and bomb-making materials were going to Joydebpur from Chapainawabganj."

"JMB wanted to demonstrate its organisational activeness by exploding the bombs taking the advantage of the political unrest.”

He said the bombs were “very powerful”.

RAB arrested the five JMB men, including its chief coordinator Abdun Noor, in Sirajganj railway station in the early hours of Friday.

The other arrestees are Noor Islam, Nuruzzaman Arif, Abul Kalam Azad and Faruque Ahmed.

Forty-nine primary detonators, 26 detonators, four time-bombs, 10kg power gel, 155 circuits, 45 button-like circuits, three igniters, a power regulator, some other bomb-making materials and 55 Jihadi books were seized from them.

Khan said Noor used to maintain contact with absconding JMB chief Sohel Mahfuz, other leaders in jail and its active members staying abroad, and scout for new recruits to reorganise the outfit.

The RAB official said legal actions were being taken against the arrestees.