Police authorities in Bangladesh have arrested four alleged Islamic State (ISIS) militants, including its regional coordinator on Monday and seized laptops and jihadi leaflets.
"Yes, the IS coordinator and the three others have been arrested," a police spokesman told PTI. A case has also been registered against the four militants.
The four were identified as ISIS coordinator Shakhawatul Kabir, Anwar Hossain, Rabiul Islam and Nazrul Islam. They have confessed that they are Islamic State members, said deputy commissioner of Detective Branch Masudur Rahman.
The police arrested the four militants during overnight raids in the Jatrabari and Khilkhet areas of country's capital Dhaka.
Detective Branch Inspector Md Abu Zafar said that two other ISIS militants hiding in Pakistan sent Kabir to Bangladesh to act as the ISIS coordinator. The two militants were Kabir's brother-in-law Shamim and another person Sayem, according to bdnews24 report.
Kabir had been frequently travelling to India, Pakistan and other countries, according to Rehman and added that the four militants were planning to kill important Bangladeshis and grab media attention
Bangladesh intelligence has been on alert against the ISIS activities ever since a video, displaying a group of Bangladeshi nationals taking oath to organise Muslims under the leadership of ISIS chief Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, surfaced online in August last year.
Almost a month after this video came online, a British national, who previously belonged to militant group al-Nusra Front, was arrested for allegedly attempting to recruit people for ISIS.
