RAB arrests three for suspected militant links in Narayanganj

The Rapid Action Battalion or RAB has detained three persons in Narayanganj suspected of being involved with militancy.

The arrests were made late Friday from the district's Baktabali, said Naryanganj-based RAB 11 chief Quamrul Hasan.

He claimed the three belonged to the banned Islamist outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh or JMB.

They have been identified as Md Waliullah Chishti alias Jony alias Mohammad alias Abu Umar, 27, Md Kamrul Hassan alias Hridoy, 35, Md Al Amin Sheikh alias Rajib alias Rajib Islah Sheikh alias Sheikh, 25.

Hasan said they were operatives of the JMB's ‘Sarwar-Tamim faction’.

The suspects were found in possession of two firearms, five bullets, and jihadi literature, he told bdnews24.com

 “Twenty to twenty-five members of the faction had met secretly to plan operations, led by a senior leader,” Hasan said.

“They heard news of a RAB raid, split into groups and fled. But three of them were caught.”

During a RAB raid on Oct 8 last year at building in Ashulia, a man died after falling from the fourth floor.

The elite police unit later identified him as Sarwar Jahan, who took up the alias Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif and regrouped a faction of the JMB along with Canadian-Bangladeshi Tamim Chowdhury.

Tamim and two other suspected militants were killed on Aug 27 last year during a gunfight at a militant hideout in Narayanganj.

Security forces have been blaming this faction of the JMB behind the terrors attacks at an upscale restaurant in Dhaka's Gulshan and the Sholakia Eid congregation in Kishoreganj.

Police's counterterrorism unit identifies the faction as the 'Neo-JMB' while RAB describes it as the 'Sarwar-Tamim group.'