Bangladesh’s banned militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad (Huji), in the garb of the Hefajat-e-Islam. was involved in the mayhem across the country against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit late last month, The Daily Star reported quoting police and intelligence inputs.

Several dozens of government establishments, railway stations, police stations and outposts were attacked during the three-day mayhem from March 26-28 in protest against Modi’s trip, the report said.  

"It (the mayhem) was actually a planned activity of Huji," an intelligence agency official said.

Several law enforcers investigating the mayhem said leaders of Huji, which was banned in 2005 following the grisly grenade attack on an Awami League rally, started to gather under the Hefajat umbrella and gained partial control over the Qwami madrasa-based organization recently.

Hefajat’s rapid transformation from an Islamic advocacy platform (of Madrasa teachers and students) to a political pressure group since 2013 drew a lot of radical Islamist outfits like Huji and Ansar al-Islam to join Hefajat.

Huji started to call the shots in Hefajat after some of its leaders managed to get posts in the recently-formed Hefajat central committee. They instigated the recent violence that left at least 17 people dead, said the investigators.

"In our investigation, we have got evidence on Hefajat's links with militant outfits. A group of Afghanistan returnees along with some Jamaat-Shibir men became tagged with the religion-based organisation (Hefajat)," Mahbub Alam, joint commissioner (Detective Branch) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told The Daily Star.

The Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI), which was given the charge of investigation into 16 cases over the three-day mayhem, said it too found Huji men were behind the violence.

Huji is carrying out its recruitment activities under the guise of Hefajat, a top PBI official said.

Another senior PBI official said at least one central Hefajat leader was arrested in 2013 after he was found to be a Huji operative.

The 249-member Hefajat central committee, which was dissolved recently, had at least eight leaders who are either former operatives of Huji or have connections with the militant outfit, The Daily Star said quoting intelligence reports.

Intelligence officials said after the death of four Hefajat men on this March 26 at Hathazari, Chattogram, its leaders, in the face of demands from Huji operatives, negotiated with law enforcers to take the bodies without any autopsies.

Tohidul Islam, additional deputy commissioner of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit, said their investigation also found that a number of Huji operatives were holding posts in the Hefajat committee.

"These operatives are now trying to use the Hefajat banner to fulfill their purpose and carry out subversive activities in the country," he added.

Another intelligence report suggests that around a dozen Hefajat leaders have ties to another militant outfit -- Ansar al-Islam.

Hefajat first appeared on the scene in 2009 by protesting a draft national women development policy that provided equal inheritance rights to women.

(SAM)