The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

At least 150 empty shells of powerful Arges hand grenades and about 2.5 tonnes of ammunition were recovered after the arrest of a high-ranking leader of outlawed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) by Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

Along with the haul of explosives and huge quantity of militant booklets, the arrested Mahmmad Hanif alias Kalam, a top-ranking leader of JMB, was produced at a crowded press briefing at the RAB headquarters in the city's Uttara yesterday.

Additional Director General of RAB Col Gulzar Uddin Ahmed, the key person behind anti-militancy drive, told yesterday that a new Ameer, Saidur Rahman, was running the militant organisation JMB.

On information the RAB-10 and RAB-4 raided Mirpur and Shanir Akhra in the city and recovered the huge cache of arms, ammunition and militant booklets.

The JMB was trying to regroup armed with country made weapons and establish new dens in the city ahead of the national elections. However, the law enforcement agencies have widened their net and were determined to identify them and their like and wipe them out soon, Col Gulzar said.

We have observed that the objectives and statements of many of these organisations were identical to the JMB. Nevertheless, it was difficult to get tough on them since such activities were allowed in the country until they commit terrorist activities in the scale of the JMB, he added.

Following the March 2007 execution of JMB kingpins Abdur Rahman, Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai and four others, the government showed its firm stance to detect the outfit's political patrons and take stern action against them. Earlier on August 17 in 2005, the militant group came to the limelight by blasting near-simultaneous 459 bombs across the country.

The activities of the JMB stopped after the execution of their leaders, but the militants were trying again to establish them ahead of the polls.

Although the law-enforcement agencies have listed 29 Islamist organisations for suspected involvement in militancy, they have focused only on the banned JMB.

Some senior officials of the law-enforcement agencies involved in investigations into the rise of militancy and its patrons say the existing laws were not adequate to bring the patrons or masterminds to book.

A large number of political observers believe JMB was an armed front of one or more political parties having the same goal of turning the country into an Islamic state.

Sources say the task forces of National Coordination Committee to combat corruption and serious crimes also started an investigation into the patronage of militancy, which had stalled at one stage for reasons unknown.

Source said they had some hints that militants received financial aid from foreign countries or had an elaborate network, they failed to unearth it, as most of the transactions were made through hundi or in person.

The investigators have found out that some individuals and organisations from the Middle East had given financial support to JMB at different times, but failed to confirm the links between JMB and any one foreign country, sources said.

"Though there was some transactions through banks but due to inefficient and improper monitoring system it was not possible for us to prove that the money was transacted for militant activities," says a top official in a law-enforcement agency.