Detectives arrest eight NGO employees over ‘militant link’

The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) Unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) arrested eight employees of an NGO from its Mirpur DOHS office in the city's Pallabi on Wednesday night for their suspected link to banned militant outfit Ansar-al-Islam.

They also recovered Tk 1.4 million, one laptop, eight CPUs and 10 mobile phone sets from their possessions.

The arrestees are Safwanur Rahman, 34, Sultan Mahmud, 25, Md Nazrul Islam, 38, Md Abu Taher, 36, Md Ilias Mridha, 30, Mdashraful Alam, 24, Hasnaine, 30, and Md Kamrul, 28.

DMP Deputy Commissioner (Media) Masudur Rahman said the arrested employees of Small Kindness Bangladesh (SKB) had involvement in the activities of banned militant outfit Ansar-al-Islam, reports UNB.

"They were involved in distributing money for militant activities at Rohingya camps in Cox's Bazar under cover of humanitarian activities and they were also involved in spreading extremism in the camps," he said.

The activities of the NGO were banned by the NGO Bureau in August for having link to financing militant activities as well as conducting anti-state activities, he said.

The SKB used to collect fund from various Islamic organizations from various countries, including Pakistan, Turkey, Philippine, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Besides, it also used to collect money from various individuals both from home and abroad in the name of donation, he said quoting a CTTC officer.