Neo-JMB ‘spiritual leader’ held in the capital

Staff Correspondent:The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police on Friday said, they held the ‘spiritual leader’ of neo-Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, a banned extremist outfit, in Dhaka on Thursday night.

Two teams of the CTTC special action group arrested Mufti Maulana Md Abul Kashem alias Boro Hujur, 60, from Senpara Parbat area in the capital around 11:00pm, said a press release of the DMP media wing.

He served as a principal of a madrassah located in Ranir Bandar area of Dinajpur, it said. Abul Kashem along with members of his family had been engaged with the extremist outfit since long, and the amir of neo-JMB after Maulana Saidur Rahman, amir of the outfit’s faction, was arrested in 2009, it said.

During the primary interrogation, Abul Kashem said he and Tamim Chowdhury began extremism activities of the neo-JMB in the country in 2013. Bangladeshi-Canadian Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, the alleged mastermind of the Gulshan café attack, was killed on August 27, 2016 during a police ‘raid’ in Narayanganj. Tamim, Marjan, the suspected Gulshan café attack coordinator, Hatkata Mahfuz, and Rajib Gandhi alias Jahangir, another ‘mastermind’ of Gulshan café attack, and many neo-JMB leaders were the followers of Abul Kashem, the press release added.