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Sleuths trace 313 financiers to Hefajat for anarchy


Published : 27 Apr 2021 10:11 PM | Updated : 28 Apr 2021 12:37 AM

Detective Branch (DB) of Police claimed to have identified at least 313 persons who used to provide funds to the radical Islamist organisation Hefajat-e-Islam, which unleashed violence and vandalism across the country in March this year.

Besides, the detectives have so far traced over Tk six crore transaction in different bank accounts of detained Hefajat leader Mamunul Huq. The detectives were verifying the source of the money. 

"We have so far identified 313 people who financed Hefajat-e-Islam," AKM Hafiz Akhter, Additional Commissioner of DB of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), told reporters at his office on Tuesday.

The DB official said some Hefajat leaders including former joint secretary general Mamunul Haque, Dhaka City unit president Junaid Al Habib, and Maulana Khaled Saifullah Ayubi met at the wedding programme of then secretary general Junaid Babunagari and planned to remove Shah Ahmad Shafi, the founder of the organisation.

Later, they created anarchy at Hathazari Madrasa in Chattogram and drove away Hefajat leaders loyal to Shafi, he said. 

The DB officials said Mamunul is on seven-day remand again in two cases. They would show him arrested in other cases for interrogation, if needed.

Over a dozen top ranking leaders of the recently dissolved Hefajat central committee were arrested in cases filed following violence in 2013 and March this year.

Different wings of the police, including DB, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) are investigating the cases in support of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

It is widely known that the radical and extremist organisation Hefajat-e-Islam had been trying to destabilize the country through anarchy and destructive violence. For this purpose, they are trying to fish in troubled waters by misleading the innocent and religious people of the country.

Backed by BNP, Jamaate Islam and other vested quarters, this Islamist organisations had also been spreading rumours and communalism through various ways, including social media.

In the face of the legal action, the committee of the Hefajat-e-Islam was dissolved and a five- member convening committee was formed.