Bangladesh’s caretaker government has released Jashimuddin Rahmani, the head of the Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). This release can increase the problems of India, where the terrorist group is trying to establish a jihadi network with the help of sleeper cells.
Jashimuddin Rahmani was released on parole on Monday. He was jailed in connection with the murder of blogger Rajib Haider. He was kept in Kashipur High Security Central Jail in Gazipur. He was also facing charges under Bangladesh’s anti-terrorism laws.
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ABT terrorists arrested in India
Several terrorists belonging to the organisation led by him have been arrested in India before. In May this year, Assam Police arrested two terrorists belonging to ABT, Bahar Mia and Rarely Mia, from Guwahati railway station. ABT is a subsidiary of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which is banned in India.
He was sentenced to five years in prison for the murder of Rajib Haider on February 15, 2013. Haider was brutally murdered in front of his house in Dhaka, following which Rahmani was arrested in August 2013. ABT was banned in Bangladesh in 2015 during the government of Sheikh Hasina.
Later, it rebranded itself as Ansar al-Islam, which was banned again in 2017. Sources told India Today that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had partnered with ABT to carry out terror attacks in India’s north-eastern states.
LET and ABT are collaborating from 2022
The collaboration between LeT and ABT began in 2022, when they made inroads in Bengal. Intelligence sources say that 50 to 100 ABT cadres were planning to infiltrate Tripura. The Assam Police has arrested ABT terrorists on several occasions and foiled their plans to set up a network in the north-eastern state.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the ABT jihadists were not using normal communication devices but were using highly encrypted devices so that they could not be traced.
The situation worsened after Sheikh Hasina lost power
Sheikh Hasina’s government had taken strong action against anti-India forces in Bangladesh, but after the recent violent protests, Sheikh Hasina’s government had to resign. After this, India fears that anti-India forces will now come to the center.
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For example, since Sheikh Hasina lost power, leaders of extremist organizations, who often carry out anti-India activities, have also been released. These incidents have increased concerns for the north-eastern part of India.
The think tank founded by former IAS Radha Krishna Mathur says the situation is particularly worrying in Assam and Tripura, where several modules of ABT and JMB have been busted in recent times.