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'Londoni houses' in Sylhet owned by the expatriate Bangladeshis are now under police watch after militants were found hiding in two houses that belong to the same owner.
Published : 04 Apr 2017, 12:31 AM
Finding it easy to rent, militants have been using these empty houses managed by caretakers in the absence of owners, police officials have said.
There are many such houses in Sylhet town, and villages known locally as 'Londoni house'.
Two houses in Moulvibazar’s Nasirpur and Barahaat were surrounded by police just after the army finished its anti-terror operation on building complex ‘Atia Mahal’ at Sylhet’s Shibbari on Mar 28.
After a two-day standoff, law-enforcers entered into the house in Nasirpur and found body parts of the seven inmates who apparently blew themselves up by explosives they hoarded as part other militant activities. Police later said that the seven belong to the same family - four of them were children.
Three militant suspects including a woman were found dead inside the hideout at Barahaat.
An expatriate Bangladeshi living in the UK owns both the houses that were under the care of one ‘Jewel’, according to reports in the media.
Almost 2 million people from the four districts in the Sylhet division are expatriates living in different countries in Europe, the Middle East and US, according to the Sylhet Overseas Centre.
A large number of these Sylhet expatriates live in London, said the organisation that provides information and services for these non-residents.
The Londoners built beautiful bungalows and houses back in Bangladesh, spending millions, which are known locally as ‘Londoni homes’.
“These non-residents make luxurious houses and apartment buildings in their home villages. These are left with caretakers. It is fairly easy process for militants who rented these from the caretakers,” Superintendent of Police (SP) Md Maniruzzaman told bdnews24.com.
“Most of these houses are in the villages where the structures are far apart with a lot of vegetation in between. Militants prefer these isolated locations,” said Zedan Al Musa, additional deputy commissioner for Sylhet Metropolitan Police.
There has been a competition in Sylhet among expatriates on building these luxury houses during the last two decades, said Samsul Alam, executive officer at Sylhet Overseas Centre.
“You can say it the race over spending and opulence, sometimes a bit too much,” he said. There are more than 5,000 such homes in Sylhet, and the money it took to make those range between Tk 10 million to Tk 300 million.
Most of these houses are in Biyanibazar, Biswanath, Balaganj, Osmaninagar, Sunamganj’s Jagannathpur, according to Alam.
Police were gathering information on tenants living in these houses, said SP Maniruzzaman.
“We are watching these houses on suspicion that there may be more militant hideouts.”
There are allegations that there are expatriates who have been funding terror back home. Police are also checking if there are such cases in Sylhet.
Meanwhile, Sylhet families living abroad are worried about the militants and surveillance on their houses, said Alam from Sylhet Overseas Centre.
“They’ll lose interest in investing here if this trend continues.”
More than half the money sent home by these non-residents, 52.40 percent, is spent in building these houses, he said. A total 13.1 percent is spent in buying farmland. Another 12.2 is spent in businesses and non-agricultural investments.
