DHAKA: Interrogators prepare to stand the detained militant kingpins and three top Jamaat leaders together in a ‘face-to-face’ brainstorming session of grilling them over Islamist activities on a number of fronts.    

Competent sources said 12 questions are being set to be shot at the
Jamaat leaders and suspected militant kingpins regarding perceived links between Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and the banned militant outfits like Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, HUJI, Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Ahle Hadith.    

Task Force Interrogation (TFI) Cell comprising several intelligence agencies, CID and senior DB personnel has sought permission from the Inspector-General of Police (IG) for the get-together of the detainees.  

They are Matiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Md. Mujahid and Dewar Hossain Sayedee of Jamaat, HUJI leader Mufti Abdul Hannan, JMB chief Saidur Rahman, Hizb-ut-Tahrir leader Prof. Mahiuddin Ahmed and Dr. Syed Golam Mowla along with Ahle Hadith Movement chief Prof Asadullah al Ghalib.

The intelligence plans to interrogate the top brass from the Islamic political camp at a stretch for two consecutive days using the leading queries trying to extricate the answers they want about violent Islamist activities.

Sources said the process of interrogating the supremos has already got underway.

During the rule of the four-party alliance, around 300 members of different militant groups and sub-groups were arrested and they provided the law enforcers with important information that they used to work together with common objectives.

But the then political environment did not allow the law-enforcing agencies to proceed for further on investigation and many unresolved queries remained unanswered over the acts of militancy across the country. Many of the militants left the country as well.

It was a challenge for the law enforcers to net incumbent JMB chief Saidur Rahman for lack of detailed information.

Now they are trying to find out missing links on the following 12 areas:

1. In separate interrogation the militant leaders informed that JMB, HUJI, Shahadat E Hishsa, Hizb-ut-Tahrir and some other banned militant organizations were directly involved in carrying out the serial bombings across the country on August 17 in 2004. How Jamaat-e-Islami at the time extended their active support from the government?
2.       After the present government came to power the war criminals were alerted as the process of war crimes trial began. They set up active connections with a number of militant outfits to undo the trial. As part of their mission, what kind of subversive activities they were planning with the help of the militants to distabilise the country?  
      Detained militant leaders Saidur Rahman, Prof. Mahiuddin Ahmed and Dr. Syed Golam Mowla have confessed to the interrogators that leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami provided financial assistance for implementing this anti-trial programme. The investigators want to verify the truth about the allegation of Jamaat’s involvement in this plan to resist the trial process.

3.    A secret meeting was held in a house of Shahidbagh of the capital recently to activate the militants where Dr. Golam Mowla, Saidur Rahman, Sheikh Mahiuddin and Jamaat leaders Delwar Hossain Sayedee, Ali Ahsan Mujahid and some core militant leaders were allegedly present.
        The intelligence also learnt that a number of important leaders of IOJ were also present at the meeting to review the situation and find out the modus operandi to halt the process of war-crime trial. The investigators will find answers from them face to face whether they had planned to unseat the present government through countrywide sabotage.
4.      The investigators want to be confirmed whether Jamaat leaders individually or as a party are involved in the plan of carrying out countrywide subversive activities with the ultimate objective of deposing the government.

5.      The intelligence agencies of the government received information that some armed terrorist organizations of the bordering areas, armed extremists of the southwestern areas and some ultra-fundamentalists have formed an ‘unholy entente’ in order to distabilise law-and-order situation.

They are maintaining close contacts and cooperation, exchanging arms and ammunition amongst themselves although there is a gulf of differences in their ideologies and objectives.

The intelligence people want to know from the proposed face-to-face meeting of the supremos what volumes of arms and ammunition have infiltrated into the country through their combined network and also where those have been dumped.

6.      It is alleged that when Jamaat chief Matiur Rahman Nizami was in power, he had distributed huge quantities of explosives among several militant organizations which the intelligence people learnt from two arrested militants during interrogation. How far the allegation is authentic?

7.      The intelligence people are sure that the money brought from outside in the name of several humanitarian organizations is being used for militant activities inside the country. The involvement of these seven detained leaders will be verified in conducting the assistance and financing the several developmental and religious activities by 78 organizations operating in the country.

Among these organizations are Adarsha Shikkha Parishad, Al Farooq Society, Al Insan Foundation, Al Amin Trust, Al Mudaraba Development Society, Masjid Society, Al Islah Trust, Institute of Higher Islamic Learning, Relief Organization, Faisal Investment Foundation, Krishi Kalayan Samity, Islam Prochar Samity, Islami Academy, Quran Learner Society, Darussalam Society, Darul Ifta and Alhera Academy etc.

8.      Information received from India and other neighbouring countries reveals that there are 148 arms training centers operating in the country.  Locations of these centers are to be confirmed from the proposed face-to-face interrogation session.
9.      The intelligence people want to know the involvement of these seven detained much-talked-about leaders about some 450 NGOs operating inside the country and about 556 clandestine bank accounts with several banks.

10.    It is also to be ascertained from them the relations of the country’s militants and Jamaat leaders with the Indian ULFA, NDFB along with other six extremist organizations operating over there.

11.  The objective of the face-to-face interrogation is to identify the high officials of the then government involved in the ‘Uttara Plot’.

12.  And, lastly, the intelligence people also want to know whether the militants were involved in the BDR revolt in 1991.    

BDST: 1200 HRS, 12 JULY, 2010.