Dhaka – Members of elite force Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) detained a youth from Tangail on charge of spreading so-called audiovisual message of al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri on the internet.
Director (media and legal wing) at the Rab headquarters Wing Commander Habibur Rahman confirmed it. A Rab team arrested Rasel bin Sattar, 22, from Mijan mess house at Majhipara in the town early Tuesday.
Rasel, a 4th year student of Jute Technology Department of Tangail Textile Institute, hailed from Kaliganj of Gazipur district and had been residing in the mess house since 2010 and he was not involved in any political activities, said Mizanur Rahman, owner of the mess house.Contacted, Principal of Tangail Textile Institute Mojammel Hossain said Rasel was a good student, and they noticed nothing unusual in his regular activities.
At a press briefing after the arrest, Rab members revealed that they captured Rasel-bin-Sattar, 21, from Majhipara in sadar upazila of Tangail around 5:30 am.
After investigation, Rab commander Habibur Rahman said, they found the involvement of the youth, a blogger and a web developer, in circulating the audiovisual message.
Rab sources said Rasel was an administrator of controversial Facebook page ‘Basherkella’ and some other pages where he uploaded seditious articles and photographs.
According to Rab, he uploaded the audiovisual clip on his different facebook pages, including islemeralo and wrodpress.com, on February 8 and titled it as ‘Silent Genocide in Bangladesh’ and thus it was circulated across the country.
He played an active role in spreading the audiovisual clip as an agent of ‘Dawah Illallahu’ or ‘Balacoat Media’, they said.
Besides, on May 7,2013, he sent an article, titled ‘Mass killing of protesters in Dhaka at night by armed joint forces, at least killed thousands”, to the yahoo e-mail ID of the Iranian President which was full of false information and fake photos.
At the press briefing, Rasel told reporters he had posted ‘like’ on a facebook page and thus the audiovisual message was circulated. ”I didn’t do anything intentionally,” he claimed.
The audiovisual message, believed to be of al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri, called upon Bangladeshi Muslims to join jihad against the western countries. The unconfirmed message was published by the Jihadology.net. – UNB
