Law enforcement agencies including specialized militant prevention organizations kept a sharp eye on militant groups ahead of the upcoming general election.
Militant organizations choose to conduct their organizational activities, while law enforcement agencies are busy with election activities.
According to Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) Unit, before the election, the law and order forces are busy due to election meetings and maintaining law and order.
Militants think law enforcers will pay less attention to them at this time. This has happened before. As a result, they chose the period of the general election for organizational activities, he added.
He said the police had no special unit to deal with militants. The job of CTTC is to control the activities of militants. So, militants will not get the previous space in the upcoming general election.
Many people, including some with their family members, have left their homes after being inspired by the so-called new militant organisation "Imam Mahmud's Kafella," which they believe as Hijrat (religious migration), said police at a press conference, quoting 10 alleged militants arrested from Moulvibazar on August 12.
Police said they were arrested while taking preparation for 'jihad' on a hill in a remote area of Kulaura upazila in the district.
The group also bought 50 decimals of land on the hill to build a training camp, said Md Asaduzzaman, Additional Commissioner and head of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) at Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) media centre in the capital.
They believe that their leader, Imam Mahmud, is the person who is supposed to come to the world before Imam Mahdi, as mentioned in various books of hadith, and he will lead the Jihad in the Indian subcontinent, said Md Asaduzzaman, Additional Commissioner and head of the CTTC, at the DMP media centre.
"Militancy has been inactive during last few years but in recent times the militants are again trying to destabilize the country by reorganizing themselves," the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Legal and Media Wing Director Commander Khandaker Al Moin said recently.
He said that the main mandate of the elite anti-crime force is to contain, eliminate militants by arresting them.
So far, a total of nine militant organizations have been banned in the country including the recently banned militant organization Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya.
"We have seen that JMB carried out the series of bomb attacks across the country on August 17, when Harkatul Jihad Al-Islami (HUJI) was also active. Last year, the RAB has arrested JMB's self-proclaimed Amir Ujjal Master during a bank robbery," said Commander Al Moin.
Those are still active in these old organizations joined the new militant outfit Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya, which has already been banned."
He said they are also recruiting new members, while the RAB detectives are working intensively to arrest them. Apart from RAB, other law enforcement agencies are also working on it.
However, RAB detectives are working in coordination with other law enforcement agencies to determine whether they are working to attack or destabilize the country.
