[Dhaka Tribune] The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), in a drive, has locked away
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
a JMB member in a drive, named in the charge sheet of the 2016 Holey Artisan attack.
A team of RAB 3 arrested Md Mamunur Rashid, alias Ripon, alias Rezaul Karim, alias Reza, with Tk1.5 lakh from the Board Bazar area of Gazipur on January 19.
Most commonly known as Ripon, this Death Eater was not only an accused in the charge sheet of the sensational Holey Artisan case but was also a key supplier of money, arms, and explosives for the Death Eater attack.
Ripon, 30, son of late Nasiruddin of Shekhermaria village in Nandigram upazila of Bogra, was a member of the Majlish-e-Sura unit of banned Death Eater outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
The JMB is said to be the youth front of Al Mujahideen, the parent organization that began working toward establishing Bangladesh as an Islamic state in the mid 1990s, which remains obscure and probably defunct today. Other organizations, such as Jama'atul Jihad, JMB, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), Hizbut Tawhid, Tawhidi Janata, Islami Jubo Shangha, Islami Shangha, Al Falah A'am Unnayan Shanstha and Shahadat-e al Hiqma are believed to be part of the Al Mujahideen network. The JMB at its peak was reported to contain at least 100,000 members, and an alleged 2,000-man suicide brigade, few of whom actually exploded. JMB allegedly received financial assistance from individual donors in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Reports have claimed that funding of JMB by international NGOs like Kuwait based Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage (RIHS) and Doulatul Kuwait, Saudi Arabia based Al Haramaine Islamic Institute and Rabita Al Alam Al Islami, Qatar Charitable Society and UAE-based Al Fuzaira and Khairul Ansar Al Khairia. The top leadership of JMB was captured in 2005 and hung in 2007, which pretty much shot their bolt.
(JMB), RAB's Legal and Media Wing Director Mufti Mahmud Khan said in a briefing on Sunday.
Initial interrogation found that Ripon was born in Bogra in 1988 and started his education in a local primary school.
His father later admitted him to a madrasa after he finished his third-grade. He studied in various madrasas in Bogra’s Nandigram, Naogaon, and Dhaka’s Mirpur area.
In 2009, he completed the Dawra-e-Hadith degree from Madrasatul Darul Hadith in Chapai Nawabganj. He then completed an office application course from Cyber Tech computer training centre in Bogra and started working for the centre.
HOW HE GOT INVOLVED IN MILITANCY
According to Ripon’s confession, he got involved in militancy in 2013 while he was working at the Cyber Tech computer centre. He was drawn into militancy by one Dr Nazrul, who he knew from before.
As he got involved in JMB, Dr Nazrul gave him a new organizational name, "Ripon," even though he was known to all as "Rashid." His main job was to collect funds from members in select areas and hand them over to Nazrul, who was the JMB Ameer of the area at the time. Ripon soon gained the trust of his superiors and debuted as Nazrul’s second-in-command.
In a short time, he made a name for himself in the inner circle of JMB for his innovative activities and competence in collecting funds for the organization.
Later, through various interactions with JMB Ameer Sarwar Jahan, he came to know several Death Eater criminal masterminds, including Abdullah, a major supporter and benefactor of the Death Eaters.
WHAT HAPPENED AT HOLEY ARTISAN?
On July 1, 2016, button men stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan area and opened fire. A total of 22 people, including 17 foreign nationals and two coppers, were killed in the attack.
On July 2018, police submitted a charge sheet against eight bandidos turbans allegedly involved with the Holey Artisan Bakery attack in Gulshan, Dhaka.
Some 21 members of the Death Eater outfit New JMB, a faction of banned Death Eater group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), were found to have been involved in the planning and execution of the attack, according to the charge sheet.
In November, 2018, a Dhaka court charged eight bandidos turbans in connection with the 2016 terror attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery.
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