The involvement of a madrasa head -previously arrested for his association with a globally-proscribed terror group of Bangladesh – and the recovery of improvised explosive devices, electric bomb-like devices and large quantity of bomb-making material from his madrasa building that blew up last week in the Hasnabad area have fuelled concerns about terror outfits gaining ground in some pockets of the neighbouring country.
While the madrasa being run by Sheikh Al Amin blew around 10 am last Friday, Bangladesh police told a local court on Sunday that Al Amin had prepared the bombs at his Ummul Quran International Madrasa in Hasnabad area of South Keraniganj, on the night before the blast, Bangladeshi newspaper The Business Standard reported Monday.
The blast had caused injuries to Amin’s family members including his wife Asiya Begum (28) and their two sons even as Al Amin himself went into hiding after the incident, the newspaper reported.
Police have arrested six persons in connection with the case while recovering “two improvised explosive devices, five electric bomb-like devices and a large quantity of bomb-making materials,” the daily reported. Three of those arrested including — Amin’s wife Asiya Begum, her sister-in-law Yasmin Akter and Asmani Khatun alias Asma.
“The seized items include about 394 litres of liquid chemicals, 27kg of powder-like substances, iron balls and wired nails, two shotgun cartridges, bombs, electronic devices, a money-counting machine, handcuffs, computers, motorcycles and several books described by police as religious or “jihadi,” it said.
However, after it emerged that Amin was earlier arrested for his involvement with the JMB incident has thrown light on the functioning of the Neo-JMB- which has been banned by the governments of United States, Canada and Australia and is considered to be a faction of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) which had been banned by both Bangladesh and India in 2005 and 2019 respectively.
“Amin was named in a case filed with Fatullah Police Station on 29 July 2017 and was arrested at that time on suspicion of involvement with a militant group known as Neo-JMB,” The Business Standard quoted a police officer as having stated.
Raising concerns of “militancy returning” to Bangladesh and militants being let off “on bail,” the Bangladesh Awami League – led by the country’s former PM Sheikh Hasina- has blaimed the Muhammad Yunus government alleging that its “meticulous design was behind the return of the militancy.”
Sharing a picture of Sheikh and others being arrested on its official X handle on Tuesday, the Awami League has alleged that he was “arrested by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in Narayanganj in 2017 and is an active member of the JMB.”
“But the reality today is this: The militants are all outside. On bail. And now they are just waiting to start action,” it said.
It further remarked that while on one hand, the Jamaat-backed Yunus government is releasing militants from jail, on the other, it is deliberately constructing a narrative that militancy never existed in Bangladesh.”
What are the JMB and the Neo-JMB?
Widely recognised as a faction of the banned JMB, the Neo-JMB has pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State but Bangladeshi authorities have in the past denied IS presence on their soil.
The group was named as “Neo-JMB” after the deadly Holey Artisan Bakery attack in July 2016 that attack left 29 people dead, including 17 foreigners, five Bangladeshi citizens, two police officers, and five militants (according to The Daily Star).
Subsequently, the Neo-JMB was banned by the governments of the United States, Australia and Canada.
Its parent JMB was banned by Bangladesh in 2005 while India banned JMB in 2019.
The website of the Australian National Security mentions the Neo-Jama’at Mujahideen Bangladesh as one of the “listed terror organisations” by the country.
It states that the organisation is “also known as ISIL-B; Islamic State of Iraq and Levant Bangladesh; Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Bangladesh; Islamic State-Bangladesh; Islamic State-Banglar Caliphate; Islamic State-Bengal.”
“Neo-Jama’at Mujahideen Bangladesh established its capability and commitment to extremist violence in Bangladesh through the 2016 Holey Artisan Bakery attack in the diplomatic area of Dhaka, Bangladesh. While this attack has been attributed to both Neo-Jama’at Mujahideen Bangladesh and Jama’at Mujahideen Bangladesh, the leading figure behind the attack, now-deceased dual Canadian/Bangladeshi citizen Tamim Chowdhury, was a key figure in establishing Neo-Jama’at Mujahideen Bangladesh,” it states.
Stating that it first listed on June 9, 2018, the website further attributes four known incidents of terror in Bangladesh.
These include when Bangladeshi authorities disrupted five of its members planning to attack the Shah Jalah shrine in Sylhet, Bangladesh in August 2020, when its members planted a crude bomb in a bag on a policeman’s motorcycle in Dhaka in July 2020, when it conducted a remote controlled improvised explosive device blast at a traffic police box in Chittagong in February 2020 and when its member was arrested in possession of a petrol bomb and bomb-making materials in Savar’s Ashulia area in January that year.
A document of the Canadian government’s Immigration and Refugee Board states that “according to sources, the JMB pledges allegiance to ISIS or is affiliated with ISIS. The Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based policy institute focused on providing information about “societies which are strategically or tactically important to the United States and which frequently restrict access to such information”, states that ISIS media releases have expressed support for the JMB.”
“Sources report that the JMB has links with Pakistan-based militant groups like HuJi [Harkat-ul Jihad-al Islami] and LeT [Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Lashkar-e-Toiba], and the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. An article in Power Politics, an India-based news magazine, indicates that the JMB is also active in Indian states of West Bengal and Assam where it is associated with the “Indian Mujahideen, Al Jihad, Al Ummah and Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI)”. Corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints of this Response,” the document says quoting newspaper reports.
In April 2019, The Daily Star reported that a Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit had found that 63 per cent of female terror suspects in the country whose profiles were analysed by the unit were linked to “Neo JMB.”
Sofia Babu Chacko is a journalist with over five years of experience covering Indian politics, crime, human rights, gender issues, and stories about marginalized communities. She believes that every voice matters, and journalism has a vital role to play in amplifying those voices. Sofia is committed to creating impact and shedding light on stories that truly matter. Beyond her work in the newsroom, she is also a music enthusiast who enjoys singing.
