An arrested jihadi of the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has
told interrogators that the terror group was planning Pulwama-type car
bomb strikes both in Bangladesh and in India’s northeastern state of
Assam.
The JMB treats the Sheikh Hasina government as representing
Murtad (apostate) interests and as enemy of efforts to make Bangladesh
an Shariat-driven Dar-ul-Islam.
It also seeks to avenge the victimization of Bangladesh -origin Muslims in Assam.
Nazir Sheikh, a JMB cadre from Bangladesh, was arrested in Tripura earlier this month .
Sheikh
has told his interrogators that ‘deadly attacks were being planned ‘ in
Assam and Bangladesh to ‘terrify the enemies of Islam.’
His
confessions echoes those of Mujibur Rahman, who , after his arrest by
Bangladesh police, confessed to working closely with Mazhar Khan, an ISI
officer working under consular cover as assistant visa officer in the
Pakistani embassy in Dhaka.
Rahman confessed that he had been to
Pakistan at least 20 times, to India eleven times and to Thailand to
meet ISI officers and gun-runners 22 times, all in the past eighteen
months.
He told Bangladesh police that the ISI officers were
funding and arming the neo-JMB elements and the Bangkok meetings were
part of the ‘third-country contacts’ to facilitate peddling of weapons
to the jihadis inside Bangladesh and northeast India.
Since
Rahman’s confessions, Bangladesh police has tightened its surveillance
of the Pakistan embassy in Dhaka and the Hasina government has even
refused to accept the credentials of Pakistan’s ambassdor designate in
Dhaka , Syedah Saqlain .
Bangladesh information minister Hasan Mahmud told media during his recent visit to Calcutta that Dhaka had ‘very justified
reasons’ in taking the unusual step of refusing to accept Saqlain’s
credentials.
He said the Hasina government was on the same
page with India in fighting terror and Bangladesh was one of the seven
sponsors, along with UK, US , France, Japan and Australia (besides
India) of the UN resolution to designate Jaish-e-Muhammed chief Masood
Azhar as a global terrorist.
That resolution fell through when China, Pakistan’s all-weather friend, put it on hold.
Indian
and Bangladesh intelligence were currently comparing the interrogation
outcome of Mujibur Rahman and Nazir Sheikh to zero in on neo-JMB modules
active in both countries .
“After Pulwama, we feel there is no
room for any complacency in the fight against terror,” a top Bangladesh
intelligence officer told media.
He said the ISI was likely to target Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after a plane hijack last month failed in Chittagong.
“We
have reasons to believe that the hijacker Mahdi had other associates
and his insistence on speaking to PM Hasina was perhaps meant to draw
her out to a vulnerable point to facilitate a surprise assault,” the top
officer said.
