He was apprehended on May 30, shortly after officials from Dhaka”s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC) learned that Abu Talha, the top leader of the Dawah wing of the international terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), became involved in militancy while studying in Deoband, India.
Ikramul Haque aka Abu Talha, India’s’most sought’ Al Qaida terrorist, was recently apprehended in Bangladesh together with his wife in a raid, according to Bangladesh daily Prothomalo. Ikramul Haque was reportedly apprehended in Dhaka’s Sabuj Bagh neighbourhood.
He was apprehended on May 30, shortly after officials from Dhaka’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC) learned that Abu Talha, the top leader of the Dawah wing of the international terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), became involved in militancy while studying in Deoband, India.
Prothomalo said that CTTC, Dhaka’s crime section, said Ikramul and his wife Faria Afreen were arrested from the city’s Madartek neighbourhood on 30 May and are presently in jail. The couple was remanded multiple times. The Daily Prothom Alo is a Bengali-language daily newspaper published in Bangladesh from Dhaka.
It is Bangladesh’s most widely read newspaper. According to a Dhaka-based intelligence source, India’s ATS has been looking for Ikramul since last year, Prothomalo stated. They later determined the guy had fled to Bangladesh. At the halfway point of this year, information regarding him was handed to Bangladesh’s intelligence services. CTTC had detained him one month prior to acquiring the information, which that intelligence was initially ignorant of. CTTC officials also claimed that Ikramul’s wife, Faria Afrin, is a member of the terrorist group’s women’s branch.
Furthermore, Abu Talha gained Indian citizenship in the names of himself and his wife, Faria Afrin Anikar. Aadhaar cards and passports from India were also discovered in their names. Asad Uz Zaman, the Head of Dhaka’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC) and Additional Commissioner of DMP, informed the Bangla Tribune, ‘Ikramul Haque alias Abu Talha is the top leader of AQIS. In India, he is facing at least ten criminal charges. Indian law enforcement officials were looking for him the most. Recently, after some Bangladeshis were detained in Gujarat as members of AQIS, they implicated Abu Talha as a recruiter. Abu Talha and his wife were recently apprehended in a raid.”
According to authorities, the Anti-Terrorism Squad apprehended eight AQIS members in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, in October 2022. Some of the militants apprehended at the time were Bangladeshis. They named Inamul Haque alias Abu Talha as their top leader to Indian law enforcement agents during interrogation. \ On May 24, 2023, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) apprehended four additional AQIS members in Gujarat, India. They were all Bangladeshi nationals.
During interrogation, they provided information to Indian law enforcement agencies regarding their recruiter, Ikramul Haque alias Abu Talha, according to sources. CTTC officers stated that they learned about Abu Talha after apprehending a Narayanganj insurgent called Khaled Saifullah in 2011. In the terrorist group, Abu Talha was known as ‘Maulana Sabet’ at the time. Khaled Saifullah then notified officials from the Counter Terrorism Unit that Maulana Sabet was the top leader of AQIS. By being in India, he was able to train and recruit individuals for AQIS in India and Bangladesh on a regular basis.
According to CTTC sources, he arrived in India on a tourist visa and was admitted to Deoband, but he afterwards obtained an Indian Aadhaar card in the name of Noor Hossain. The crackdown on AQIS began in India in March 2022, when Assam Police arrested a key Bangladeshi leader of the terrorist organisation. According to authorities, the arrest was the product of several months of Assam Police intelligence activities dating back to at least September 2021. As a result, more than 50 people have been arrested around the country. The most recent of these was conducted by Gujarat ATS last month, when 5 AQIS operatives from Bangladesh were apprehended.
Notably, Prothomalo revealed that Bangladeshi intelligence agencies got information about Abu Talha in the middle of this year. CTTC had arrested him one month before the information was received.
