Top militant outfit leader arrested in Bangladesh

Dhaka: Mahmud Hassan Gunbi, a top leader of the banned militant outfit Ansar Al-Islam and Hefazat-e-Islam, has been arrested in Bangladesh capital Dhaka, officials said.

Gunbi was arrested on Friday evening from Dhaka's embankment area, Commander Khandaker Al Moin, director of Legal and Media Wing of Rapid Action Battalion, told IANS.

Gunbi used to "hypnotize" innocent boys and girls, saying to follow Islam, it is a must in manifesting oneself as a militant and suicidal militant member. He confessed that he knows how to hypnotize people to make them suicidal militants secretly through special training.

The madrasa students stay isolated from relatives, family, and friends. Trainees are kept away from life, society, politics, culture and science. Then their minds are frightened by religious misinterpretations and disgust about normal life. As a result, the trainees lose their emotions, feelings, intelligence, family ties, judicial knowledge, etc. In this way, the soft-hearted adolescents lose their minds and develop themselves as brutal militants.

Militant Al Shakib (20), who was arrested from Dhaka on May 5 in a raid by the law enforcement agencies, confessed to having played a special role in changing himself as a suicidal bomber of Ansarullah Bangla team influenced by Gunbi in Sirajganj and later inciting him to commit suicide.

Gunbi, kingpin of the militant outfit eDawat e Islam', HUJI, Ansarullah Bangla Team, the banned militant outfits, used to invite innocent people in militancy by the name of eIslam'.

He claimed himself to be the chief of Dawat e Islam Bangladesh, an Al Qaeda-affiliated militant outfit in his confessional statement with RAB.

'Jihadi' books and leaflets were recovered during the operation.

Commander Moin said told IANS that Gunbi was trying to motivate women to join militancy.

Several of his close associates, Saiful Islam, Abdul Hamid, Anisur Rahman, have already been arrested for their involvement in militancy.

Gunbi used to run "shadow organizations" to hide his spreading militancy. Those are called "Manhaji" members of Dawat e Islam. Those members formed militant members within the organization.

He also incited extremism and terrorism on various issues. He took the special initiative to include followers of other religions in the banner of "Dawat Islam" and to join militancy. In this case, they use a strategy to arouse "psychological remorse" in particular.

Gunbi, one of the top militants of HUJI was first associated with Huji (B) an Islamic militant outfit, active in the South Asian countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India since the early 1990s. The militant outfit was banned in Bangladesh in 2005.

Later, he came in touch with Jasim Uddin Rahmani, leader of Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Pakistan based militant outfit Jamat e Islam and one of the founders of the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). As a close associate of Rahmani, also the accused of the assassination of the philosopher Avijit Roy, other intellectuals and thinkers of Bangladesh like Rajib, Dipon.

Since 2010, he has started preaching and promoting militancy in religious discourse in 2014. He has a business of publishing militant books.