Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) captured the sixth Majlish-e-Shura member of the outlawed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) Khaled Saifullah at a bordering village of Shibganj upazila in Chapainawabganj last night. Lt Col Lutfar Rahman, commanding officer (CO) of BDR 6 Rifles Battalion, acknowledged the arrest, reports our staff correspondent in Rajshahi. With the latest arrest, six out of seven members of the JMB top decision-making tier have been put behind bars. Salahuddin is still at large with a Tk 10 lakh bounty on his head.A BDR patrol team of Telkupi border outpost (BOP) led by Havildar Yakub arrested Saifullah at a tea stall, 500 yards off the BOP around 12:30am when he was having tea. The outpost is about one and a half kilometres away from the Indian border. BDR members were quizzing the top terror at their Chapainawabganj headquarters before Rapid Action Battalion (Rab)-5 took him in its custody around 2:00am today.
BDR sources said the government sent photographs of the two absconding Shura members to the border areas on March 15 and alerted the border guards. A source seeing resemblance with the photograph informed the nearby outpost guards, who immediately raided the area and trapped him. Saifullah first did not admit his identity but eventually confessed that he was the JMB Shura member. He went to the locality on March 31 and was staying at different mosques and madrasas, a BDR source said. Saifullah lived in the area on donation, the source added. Saifullah claimed he did not have any intention to cross the border.
PROFILE
Name: Md Faruk Hossain alias Khaled Saifullah
Father: Nurul Islam, a freedom fighter, who was killed by Pakistani occupation forces in 1971.
Permanent address: Goalata village in Kaukhali upazila in Pirojpur.
Occupation: Teacher of Aysha Siddique Salafiya Islamia Girls' Madrasa in Chhoto Gurgola in Dinajpur.
Links unfolded: JMB members during interrogation said their chief Abdur Rahman and Khaled Saifullah trained them up how to make and detonate bombs. Investigators believe the JMB supremo and Saifullah learned bomb making in Afghanistan when they visited the Taliban-ruled country. The investigators have an authentic piece of information that Saifullah was a leader of outlawed Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJi) in Bangladesh before he joined the JMB.