In a significant achievement, Bangladesh Police arrested a Pakistani national, Khurram Khayam, who also goes around as Mohammad Selim on Oct. 3.  Two of his associates, Abdul Malek and Mohammed Imran, both Pakistani nationals, were also picked up from a hotel in a posh locality in Dhaka.

Manir-ul- Islam, Deputy Commissioner of the Detective Branch described Khurram Khayam as the prize catch. The Police was looking for him for a long time since they came across his name last year during the interrogation of three arrested LeT cadres. Islam said the police raided the hotel on a tip off that huge quantity of fake foreign currency was being exchanged at the place. 

Khurram Khayam’s prime task, given by his LeT bosses in Pakistan, was to recruit cadres from Bangladesh and send them to Pakistan for motivation and arms training.  He has been in close contact with radical Islamic organisations functioning from various Madrassas in Bangladesh.  Khayam was also coordinating activities of various militant organisations in Bangladesh and extending financial assistance to these groups, according to the police officials.

At the time of his arrest, Khayam has a Pakistani passport in the name of Mohammad Selim. The cover he adopted for his frequent visits to Bangladesh was import of foreign cigarettes, which is a highly profitable venture. The money generated in the cigarette trade went to finance local activities, according to Deputy Commissioner Manir-ul-Islam.

Islam said the interrogation of three LeT activists put the police on the Khayam trail. All the three were arrested late last year. One of them was Emdadullah with two more names – Mansoor Ali, and Mehbub. The other two were Abdul Syed Sufian Azhari and Mufti Obaidullah.

Sufian Azhari came to Bangladesh from Pakistan in 2005 to study at the Gazhipur Islamic University of Technology. Since then, he was in regular contact with Bangladesh-based agents of the LeT and activists of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen-Bangladesh (JMB), Harkat-ul-Jehad-ul-Islam-Bangladesh (HuJI-B), and other militant groups. His primary task was to identify right targets and recruit prospective cadres.  During interrogation he confessed that the Pakistani handlers of LeT activists had a plan to carry out simultaneous attacks on multiple targets in Jammu and Kashmir.  However, the mission failed as several militants were killed while the survivors fled back to Bangladesh.

Sufian Azhari landed in the police net on November 9, 2010 after investigators found that he had provided shelter for Pakistani LeT terrorists at his university hostel room.

An interesting nugget came to light during his interrogation. Sufian’s father, Abduyl Qayam Azhari was an officer in the Pakistan Army at the time of Bangladesh’s liberation war in 1971 and he took active part in the suppression unleashed by the Pakistan forces.

Emdabullah, arrested on Oct. 2, 2009, was no less a prized catch. Indian national by birth, he entered Bangladesh three years earlier and became the chief of Bangladesh chapter of Lashkar-e-Taiba.  His Bangladeshi passport was arranged by a local Mufti by name Hannan. The same Mufti helped Khurram Khayam, the LeT organiser, to acquire a local fake passport.

These arrests led the police to smash a plot to create a network of various Pakistan-based terrorist organisations in Bangladesh with the express purpose of targeting India in a coordinated manner. Besides JMB and LeT, other groups active in Bangladesh are Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), HuJI and the gang of notorious underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who has taken shelter in Karachi.

There is reason for Pak based terror groups choosing Bangladesh for their anti-India operations, according to Sharif A. Kafi, a researcher on militancy. “It is easy to criss-cross the India-Bangladesh border. It is long, porous and unguarded and therefore a safe border”, he opines. 

Bangladesh Police are on the look out for the local chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, Mohammad Mohiuddin Munshi, and his brother, Salauddin Munshi. Both have gone underground and have so far evaded the police dragnet. 

Some six –months back, a Jaish activist, Mubashwer Shahid was arrested in Dhaka.  Shahid has two other names -Yahya and Mubin. Since his arrest in April, he has been on a song to the delight of his interrogators. Shahid has revealed that a close liaison exists between terrorist organisations and Bangladesh National Party (BNP) led by Begum Khaleda Zia.  A BNP leader Mohiuddin Ahmad, whose name figured in the Shahid’s disclosures, has gone underground.

Around the time Shahid was nabbed, Dawud Merchant, a close associate of Dawood Ibrahim, landed in the police net. He was picked up from Brahmanbari and helped the investigators to unravel the hitherto unknown ISI plan of creating a broad based D- Company base across Bangladesh. The plan has three objectives – funding and coordinating the activities of militant groups and tapping the services of BNP leaders.

Not surprisingly, the past three-four months have witnessed frantic efforts to get ‘freedom’ for Shahid and Merchant literally by hook or crook. Legal eagles are busy exploiting the loopholes in the Bangladesh’ legal system but success has not come their way thus far. The legal operation is funded by Dawood’s second-in-command, Chota Shakeel. According to Bangladeshi intelligence agencies, he had sent US$ 17,000/- to a Motijhil- based businessman through illegal foreign exchange channels for securing the release of Dawud Merchant. 

There were also attempts at jail break but luck did not smile at them. Till, he himself landed in the jail, Khurram Khayam, the LeT coordinator for Bangladesh also made valiant efforts to secure the release of Dawud Merchant. And also of LeT activists like Sufian and Shahid.

On October 6, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested Maulana Mohammad Imran who is allegedly aligned with the LET, at Madaninagar in the Siddirganj Upazila of Narayan Ganj district. He is primarily engaged in recruiting local youth for the LeT and sending them to Pakistan for training. A huge amount of counterfeit foreign currency, one mobile phone set and books on Jihad were seized from him  

The first week of October saw another important arrest, again from Dhaka itself. JMB’s Dhaka divisional chief Sharful Islam Likhon and his two accomplices were arrested at Savar on the outskirts of the city. In their possession were eight petrol bombs, 1.5 kilogram bomb-making materials, two identity cards and some tools.

Likhon, who also goes around as Rana, was planning to strike in posh localities of the capital city, and towards that end was engaged in collecting bomb-making materials from across the country.  His two accomplices are identified as ehsar (full – time member) Sahinul Islam and gayeri ehsar (part-time member) Chainur Rahman.  Police said Sahinul also uses three other names -Shahinul Alam, Belal and Shahin 

Likhon started his JMB baptism in Joypurhat where he rose to become the district chief in 2004. He and his brothers – Mohammad Rabiul Islam alias Rabi and Jahangir Alam alias Liton – were held guilty of serial bomb blasts in the district on August 17, 2005, and have been awarded life term. Liton is presently held at Rangpur jail while Rabi is cooling his heels in the Joypurhat jail.