Four DU students arrested for alleged association with Hizb-ut-Tahrir

ArrestProthom Alo illustration

Police have arrested four students of Dhaka University (DU) on allegations of being associated with banned militant group Hizb-ut-Tahrir. They were detained from capital’s Bangshal in Old Dhaka and Azimpiur on last Sunday. On Monday court gave two days of remand for those four students.

The detained students were identified as Rezwan Parvez, Mehedi Hasan Bijoy, Nure Alam Md Shihab Uddin and Abu Al Jinnatul. Of them Rezwan and Mehedi are students of DU’s Accounting and Information System department, Nure Alam is a BBA student and Jinnatul is a student of the English department. Hizb-ut-Tahrir’s organisational documents, leaflets, posters and two periodicals were recovered from their possession, claimed police officials.

Mishuk Chakma, deputy commissioner, Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTCC) unit, told Prothom Alo, Rezwan was detained following a raid in a flat in Bangshal. Later, based on his information, the others were detained from zimpur. All of them confessed of being members of Hiz-ut-Tahrir during initial interrogation.

Cases have been filed against these four students under anti-terrorism act. The court put them on remand for interrogation in connection to that case.

Earlier on last Saturday night, Ashiqur Rahman, a student of International Relations department of DU was also picked from a flat in Azimpur.

The next day on Sunday, teachers and students of the department gathered on the campus demanding his whereabouts. That evening, officials of the Detective Branch (DB) of Police handed him over to his guardians, referring to him as a ‘very good boy’.

CTCC officials say that Hizb-ut-Tahrir members have become active recently to create a chaos in the country. They organised an online conference on 18 March. To make that conference successful, they held a meeting in a secret hideout.