Dhaka, Sep 30 (Inditop.com) Learning to blow up or be blown up and to pull a cycle rickshaw — these are among the tests a recruit must pass before being inducted into the militant group Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
With the trainer holding the trigger, he must walk with live bombs and explosives tied to his body.
The cycle rickshaw bit has a dual purpose: It helps shed any conceit and also allows the youth to move around incognito and listen to what others say.
Three-day “nerve-racking tests” both mock and real form the initial part of the induction, JMB detainees have told sleuths during interrogation.
“To be inducted as a full-timer (Ehsar), operatives have to distance themselves from worldly concerns. They are taught to consider life and family as matters of secondary importance,” an investigator told The Daily Star newspaper.
Once the theory sessions are over, the trainees go through a stringent regimen of physical exercise. They also learn to operate arms, ammunition and explosives.
On completion of the course, the trainers recommend who among their subjects should be full-timers and who should be part-timers (Gayeri Ehsar).
The recruits are then sent to the JMB veterans to have their military skills honed and resolve strengthened.
The JMB leaders do not introduce a fresher to the simulation until they are convinced he would not harm the organisation even if he left after some time.
Interrogators said they have learned from arrested JMB men that there are instances of failure to recruit a person even after nurturing him for a long time.
The detainees, however, claim they know of no-one dropping out of the training.
JMB introduced suicide terrorism to the country through blasts that killed two senior assistant judges and wounded three people at Jalakathi on Nov 14, 2005.
It continues to regroup and update its skills at recruitment, training and operations. Its mission is to usher in an Islamic ‘caliphate’ in Bangladesh.
The authorities drive against it has seen many ups and downs in the last four years.
“We have already broken their backbone. No matter how hard they try to regroup, it all flashes on our radar screen,” Lt. Col. Ziaul Ahsan, director of the Rapid Action Batallion’s intelligence wing, told The Daily Star.
