RAB nabs JMB IT chief, 3 others

The Rapid Action battalion (RAB) on Sunday night arrested banned Jama’atul Mujahidin Bangladesh’s (JMB) information technology (IT) chief and three other members of the wing in separate drives in the capital and Mymensingh areas.
RAB seized five detonators, two grenade covers, a binocular, a laptop and a number of books from their possession, official sources said yesterday.
A Rab team raided city’s Pallabi area on Sunday night and arrested IT chief Mohammad Emranul Haque, also an explosive expert. He is also known as Rajib, Mainul, Abu Toba and Iqbal. Rab also arrested Abu Bakar Siddiqui short-named Abu Hanif, a member of ehsa advisory body, the sources added.
Thirty-year-old Emranul Haque secured BSc engineering (civil) degree from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2003. He was also the associate researcher of the BUET.
Rezanur Rahman Khan, assistant director general of the RAB told at the press briefing in the RAB HQ yesterday that Rajib is IT chief and explosive expert of the JMB. Rajib was present at the press briefing. Several units of RAB are stepping up the hunt for militants as they have been trying to regroup and launch fresh attacks, he added. RAB said Rajib used to send information to ‘Boma Mizan’ on making bombs through Bashar, the son of incumbent JMB chief Saidur Rahman.
Rajib came from Chuadanga and was working as an associate researcher at the Department of Water Resources Engineering at BUET.
Rajib at the press briefing said that JMB had WebPages. Through this WebPages they were easily exchanging information from other JMB members.
Rajib also said, as he was the associate researcher of the BUET so he could easily procure explosive materials from the chemical markets.
In another raid in Muktagachha of Mymensingh, Rab arrested two other suspected ehsar members.The arrestees are Mohammad Saiful Islam, 28 and Shirin Shapla, 18 who were the suicide squad member of JMB.
Earlier, RAB yesterday arrested an outlawed JMB chief explosives expert Jahidur Rahman, alias “Boma Mizan”, and his wife Sharmin from the city’s Mirpur.
JMB, one of several outlawed Islamist groups seeking to turn mostly Bangladesh into a sharia-based Islamic state, was blamed for a series of deadly bombings in late 2005 in which at least 30 people were killed and 150 others wounded.
The militants have been on the backfoot since the top six JMB commanders were tried and executed in 2007.
Those who have been detained in recent raids were taken to Dhaka, the sprawling capital of 11 million people, but there were also raids in the Mymensingh and Rajshahi areas.

Courtesy of The New Nation