2 Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen leaders may be hiding in India: Bangladesh security

Bangladesh suspects that two top leaders of a re-organised Jamaat-ul Mujahideen (JMB) took refuge in India to mobilise weaponry and financial support for the banned outfit to carry out the 1 July terrorist attack on a Dhaka cafe, according to reports today.

One of the two JMB leaders, Shariful Islam Khaled, is also blamed for hacking to death his liberal university professor, who was on way to work, in April. Mamunur Rashid Ripon alias Jahangir and Khaled left for India in April, days after the murder of the Rajshahi University professor.

"Ripon and Khaled went to the neighbouring country in April and they have been hiding there since then," counterterrorism and transnational crimes transnational crimes (CTTC) unit chief Monirul Islam said.

He said Bangladesh has already informed India about the militants' possible stay in Kolkata.

Influential leaders of the neo-JMB, ideologically inclined to the Islamic State, and after their top organiser Bangladeshi-Canadian Tamim Chowdhury was killed in a security raid last week, they could appear as conduits of international terrorist links.

A three-member team from the CTTC and the police headquarters recently visited India and interrogated detained Indian national and suspected Islamic State operative Abu Al-Musa Al-Bangali. He had connections with Ripon and Khaled, said the police sources.

--PTI