After months of uneasy lull, Bangladesh is seeing a spate of young people going missing mysteriously and law enforcing agencies struggling to find their whereabouts immediately.
This is a new gremlin in the country's fight against militants and suspected recruits by local and international terror outfits to pursue their "holy" mission through killing, abduction and cruel dispensation of "notorious justice" for a place in the heavens.
Over the past week, nine young men, mostly students of different educational institutions in Dhaka, Barisal, Pabna and Rangpur have gone missing with no clue left to their parents or law enforcers to track them down or know where they are.
One boy from Barisal, however, left a mobile SMS telling his parents, he was going on a holy mission, his mother told reporters on Thursday.
Previously, militant outfits, especially the IS (Islamic State), recruited and trained students from private universities in Dhaka, mostly coming from well off and educated families. This surprised all including the law agencies as to why those boys had chosen the dangerous passion of becoming militants. Seven of them died in an encounter with law enforcers and the army after they attacked Holey Artisan café in the capital's Gulshan diplomatic area on July 1, held 20 people hostage including 17 foreigners ad killed them - along with two police officers.
Since then police, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit scoured the country for terrorists, busted several of their dens in Dhaka and Narayanganj, killed 13 militants and suspects and arrested many more that led to a temporary lull in the raging militancy.
But the situation suddenly changed this week, as police confirmed nine boys have gone missing - and suspect they may be heading to join militancy - that signals a potential danger for the country.
Police and others ask who motivated them to leave homes, what was the bait and who were their mentors? This is an intensifying mystery. The law enforcers say they take the challenge and will get the culprits (those who brainwash the boys and arrange their travel abroad).
Bangladeshi law enforcers are adequately trained to handle militancy but they are having a tough time since the July café attack - which the IS claimed and showed videos and photos of the dead militants.
Mystery behind the sudden disappearance of 9 youths, created a new puzzle for everyone.
The most devastating step taken by local and international militant outfits is, they are targeting young men and women preferably between 16 to 25 years of age as fresh recruit.
Normally, law enforcement agencies keep eyes on adult male for any kind of suspicious movement. But they do not give much importance on how the young boys and girls communicate with and reach out to the militants outside country.
The recruiters have exploited this weak point of intelligence and using it they draw up their battle line and get the "soldiers" ready to fight. A prize the militant groups tag with their offer is a place in the heavens. They use the name of Islam (Muslim religion) as bait and find branwashed boys and girls to take it. While the men join IS, Al Qaeda and other fighters in the Middle-East, Iraq or Afghanistan the women are used for resource replenishment or as suicide bombers.
If the missing nine youths are indeed involved in militancy, as the police hint, then there is a reason for public concern.
On the other hand, if these young men have been picked up by others or abducted, that too is a fearful matter.
The questions being widely asked are did these young men voluntarily run away from homes, are they involved in any conspiracy, If they have fled on their own accord?
Even before the Holey Artisan attack, several young men had gone missing. Later it was unearthed that they were involved in various acts of militancy, in collusion with each other.
The law enforcement agencies arrested several other suspected militants in line with them and some of the suspects were killed in gunfights.
The law enforcers are still at a loss over the whereabouts of the nine youths although their guardians filed general diaries over the disappearances.
Two Pabna Medical College students missing were identified as Zakir Hossain and Tanvir Ahamad Tanoy. Zakir Hossain was the organizing secretary of ruling party student unit BCL, local sources said. Friends of Zakir and Tanvir said they were missing from same time. Family members filed GD with Pabna and Kounia police stations in Rangpur.
A 16-year old madrasa student of Agailjhara Upazila at Barisal was missing for about 10 days. His family filed GD with Agailjhara police station on Sunday in this connection. Kohinoor, mother of a missing boy said her son sent a SMS on Tuesday that he was moving on the holy path.
Family members of the missing youths say they do not know why their children went missing all of a sudden. They want their boys back.
They are Zayen's father Ismail Hossain Khan Rasel, Mehedi's uncle Mahbub Alam, Sujan's brother Sumon and Sayeed Anwar's uncle Akram Kabir - who trold the Daily Observer that they do not think their dear ones in any way might have any link to any militant organisation.
They just do not know why or how the youths disappeared into the blue. "We want our boys back and in good health," the fathers said in almost similar words.
Police say the "style of the boys' missing suggest they might have been radicalised."
Safayet Hossain, Zayen Hossain Khan Pavel, Sobuj alias Sujon and Mehedi Hasan - all residents of Banani - went missing six days ago. They were last seen dining together at a Banani restaurant.
Sayeed Anwar Khan, also a Banani resident, has been missing since Monday afternoon, and Imran Farhat, a resident from Dhaka Cantonment area, disappeared on November 29.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Deputy Commissioner (media) Masudur Rahman said "We came to know about their disappearances after the guardians filed GDs."
"We are investigating this matter giving highest priority. The DB Police also is working on it."
In reply to a query over the boys' suspected militancy involvement, he said: "We are still investigating. We are communicating with the families of missing youths.
Among the four boys missing from Banani, Safayet recently stopped his studies, but Zayen was a student of NSU's electrical and electronics department in the last semester. Sujon serves at a renowned advertising agency. Mehedi came to Dhaka from Barisal to attend a job interview on November 26. He also went missing after meeting Sujan at the restaurant, said police sources.
Imran's family members said that he went out of his Matikata residence on November 29, to go to Care Medical College at Mohammadpur. Since then he is missing.
Police said talking with Imran's family members and local people, "we think his family is very orthodox regarding religious matters. He (Imran) also maintained strong religious rules."
