Dhaka: A detained Bangladesh-born British
citizen, wanted by the London police for allegedly financing
South Asian militant groups, has told interrogators that he
was introduced to the former HuJI chief by intelligence
officials, one of them still serving the Navy.
Golam Mostafa, chief of the UK chapter of the banned
outfit told investigators that two officials of Directorate
General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) had introduced him to
former Harkatul-Jihad-e-Islami chief Maulana Abdus Salam in
2007, Prothom Alo reported.
This was the time when Abdus Salam had floated his
Islamic Democratic Party (IDP), severing his links with the
militant outfit.
The report said one of the officials, an army colonel
went in hiding after he was sacked by the Sheikh Hasina
government on different allegations, while another officer is
a Navy officer who is still in service, had proposed Mostafa
to work for the IDP.
Bangladesh police last week announced they had arrested
Mostafa who had joined the armed Afghan resistance against the
then Soviet occupation in 1980's along with the Afghan
Mujaheedins and led a group of 126 Bangladeshis in the war.
Police said Mostafa fled to Bangladesh in 2007 apparently
to evade arrest by police in Britain where his bank accounts
were reportedly closed on charges of militant financing.
He is now being intensively interrogated at the Task
Force Interrogation Cell on a court order.
Salam was arrested last year, two years after he
announced the emergence of IDP at a function in Dhaka last
year inviting as guests a controversial pro-Israel campaigner
and three community leaders representing the Hindu, Buddhist
and Christian faiths apparently to show their new
organisation's respect for interfaith beliefs.
Police said Mostafa was arrested earlier in 2007 when he
returned to Bangladesh but went into hiding after coming out
on bail and was subsequently tried in absentia and handed down
17 years of imprisonment for militant activities.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, April 20, 2010, 12:35