Missing youths with suspected militant links travelled to Chandpur from Cumilla

The youths had an encounter with police who believe they are tied to Islamists

The seven youths, who have been missing for over two weeks ago, travelled from Cumilla to Chandpur where they ran into police.

Police, who are now investigating the students’ suspected ties to militancy, put them in a hotel, the last place where they were seen.

They left the hotel in Chandpur the next morning, saying they were going home, but they did not.

The families are in distress 16 days after the students left home on different accounts. They contacted several law-enforcing agencies. The Rapid Action Battalion and police’s Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime Unit, besides the local police stations, started working on the case.

A CTTC team met the families on Wednesday. The students gave different accounts before leaving home. The families are not aware of their whereabouts,” said CTTC Asaduzzaman.

“It can’t be said whether they’ve joined JMB, Neo-JMB, Ansarullah or al-Qaeda without interrogating them,” he added.

Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh or JMB is a banned militant outfit. Police blame a reorganised group of JMB militants, called Neo-JMB, for the 2016 Holey Artisan cafe attack in Dhaka’s Gulshan.

Ansarullah Bangla Team or ABT is blamed for a series of deadly attacks on secular bloggers, writers, publishers and online activists.

A RAB official and another of police, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigation revealed the recently missing youths left home to join Ansar Al Islam, which is described as an affiliate of global terrorist network al-Qaeda.

ONE YOUTH AT CENTRE OF INVESTIGATION

The missing students are identified as Imran Bin Rahman, 17, an HSC candidate of Cumilla Victoria College, his classmate from the same college “Sami”, 18, Hasibul Islam, 18, another HSC candidate from Cumilla Govt College, his classmate Nehal Abdullah, 17, Ahmed Rifat, 19, a first-year student of Victoria College, Aminul Islam Al-Amin, 23, a third-year student at the institution and Sartaz Islam aka Niloy, 25, a graduate of computer science from Dhaka’s Daffodil University.

Niloy, the senior most among the youths and cousin of Nihal, might have influenced the students to leave home, believe the families of four of them. Niloy lived in Dhaka while the others resided in Cumilla.

Nihal’s father Saiful Islam said both Nihal and Niloy were pious. Niloy left home on Aug 23 saying he was going to Nihal’s home, but Niloy did not come, said Saiful.

Saiful said a man identifying himself as Shafiqul Islam, the manager of Chandpur Hotel and Restaurant, called him on Aug 24 morning and said police put Nihal and his friends at the hotel.

Saiful talked to Niloy via Shafiqul’s phone at the time, but Niloy told Saiful not to come. Niloy also said they would leave the hotel for home at once. Finally, the students did not return home.

Hotel Manager Shafiqul said Sub-Inspector Khairul Islam of Natun Bazar Police Camp brought the youths to the hotel around 2am on Aug 24.

Khairul told Shafiqul to keep the youths for the night and call their parents the next morning.

But Shafiqul’s shift ended in the morning and another manager, Hedayet Ullah, let the youths go.

SI Khairul said they thought the youths needed help as they were sitting on the footpath at night.

Nurul Islam, father of Al-Amin, and Md Mujibur Rahman, father of Shithil, said they recognised their sons from the hotel’s security camera footage, but there were many others.

They believe some other youths than those reported missing were in the hotel.

“Even the slaughtering of a chicken scares my son. How can he get involved in militancy! Even if it happened, my son must’ve been taken away for training. Niloy arriving from Dhaka by showing a false reason looks suspicious to me. He might've been behind all these,” said Mujibur.