A missing man named Tehzeeb Karim, who once visited Pakistan and Yemen, is now wanted by police.
Deputy Commissioner (Media) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Masudur Rahman yesterday said they have information about Tehzeeb’s links with militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team.
“Tehzeeb is wanted by police for his militant links and we are trying to arrest him. His name prominently figures on our list of missing persons,” he told The Daily Star.
Ansarullah Bangla Team, now renamed Ansar Al Islam, is believed by investigators to be a pro al-Qaeda outfit.
His parents vehemently oppose the police claim. They believe Tehzeeb, 33, who has been missing since May 17, had no militant links.
However, they said he had become “extremely religious” after completing A-level. Recently, he was coming back to “normal life”.
According to friends, Tehzeeb, once a fun-loving youth, started to become “way too much religious” after he began to date Seerat Rashid. He married her soon after passing A-level in 2002.
Seerat is the daughter of Mohammed Abdur Rashid Chowdhury, chairman of now-defunct Research Centre for Unity Development (RCUD).
According to sources in law enforcement agencies, RCUD had an office in Dhanmondi and was active until 2005. It was affiliated with Jama’atul Muslemin, a secret group formed by some members of banned organisation Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
Nothing more could be known about Jama’atul Muslemin. Seerat or her father could not be reached for comments.
Some of the sources said Tehzeeb went to Yemen with two brothers named Mainuddin Sharif and Rezwan Sharif — both involved with RCUD.
Tehzeeb too had links with RCUD, the sources claimed, adding the three were arrested in Yemen.
Asked about Tehzeeb’s connection with RCUD, his parents told this correspondent on Monday that it was just an NGO and he went there for a few days.
He stopped going to RCUD finding that it was not a profit-making organisation, they said.
Tehzeeb phoned his father around 5:30pm on May 17 from inside Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on his return from Bangkok. He could not be traced after that, the parents said, adding a government agency might have picked him.
“What else could have happened to him in a high-security place like Dhaka airport?” asked his father Jainul Karim.
Tehzeeb went to Bangkok on March 13 to take an advanced teaching course under Cambridge University, added the parents.
According to a BBC report published on March 18, 2011, Tehzeeb and his brother Rajib Karim “had contacted radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, a key figure in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, saying they wanted to fight jihad overseas”.
Besides, the London Metropolitan Police website says Tehzeeb and two others in December 2009 travelled from Bangladesh to Yemen where they contacted radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi.
Rajib, who worked for British Airways, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in the UK in 2011 for plotting to blow up a plane after conspiring with Awlaki, according to media reports.
Tehzeeb’s friends said he along with his wife and children went to Pakistan in 2008 and returned afterwards.
Police sources say they made the trip to join jihad.
During an interview with this correspondent at his Green Road residence, Jainul Karim said his son went to Pakistan and Yemen at a young age. “He had no bad intention behind these trips.”
Tehzeeb brought a lot of kurtas and panjabis from Pakistan and wanted to sell those in Dhaka. But he didn’t get government permission to do the business, said Jainul.
Asked why he went to Yemen and why he was arrested there, Jainul said Tehzeeb went there to learn Arabic. He was not arrested there but was confined for several months like many other foreigners during a political turmoil.
Tehzeeb is the youngest of three brothers.
Atif Karim, the eldest, and his wife died in a mysterious accident in London in 2001.
Tehzeeb passed O- and A-level from Scholastica School. A former classmate, who knew both Tehzeeb and Seerat, said he was a jolly young man who loved to sing, play cricket and hang out with friends.
His attitude was in stark contrast to that of Seerat, who was extremely religious.
Tehzeeb and Seerat were classmates and they started to date while in A-level, friends say.
Though the friends believe Tehzeeb became strictly religious because of Seerat, his parents think the death of his brother could be the reason.
His father Jainul Karim and mother Mumtaz Karim added it is also possible that he was “influenced by friends”.
“He used to hang out with friends at home, go to mosque with them at prayer times. They used to return together,” Mumtaz told The Daily Star on Monday.
Tehzeeb and Seerat completed A-level from the school and got admitted to North South University (NSU).
“He was totally a different person after he was admitted to the university and got married,” said one of his school friends.
Tehzeeb and Seerat started attending religious gatherings to discuss Quran and the Hadith at Old DOHS where they lived in 2003-04, said a family friend who attended such discussions.
According to his parents, Tehzeeb in recent years started to watch TV, which he had shunned completely. His wife also began to change as she would sometimes leave the house without hijab.
Trying to bring him back to “normal life”, his father went to mosques with him over the last three years while his mother accompanied him to the institution where he taught.
Tehzeeb’s LinkedIn profile says he is a senior teacher and trainer at an English language centre in Dhaka. And he previously taught at some other schools.
Jainul said he was involved with left student organisation Chhatra Union when he was a student. In 1991, he contested the national elections with BNP ticket but failed. Since then he had no political involvement.
He said he fought in the Liberation War under sector 2 but never sought a freedom fighters’ certificate.
“I will give Tk 5 crore to anyone who can prove that my son is a militant. But I should be given the same amount if an attempt to label him as a militant fails.”
Source: The Daily Star
