While law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Bangladesh are continuing actions against terror-connected leaders of pro-Caliphate Hefazat-e-Islam, Islamists are silently continuing expanding their presence and dominance of social media, while unfortunately, most of such activities are yet out of the radar of our intelligence or law enforcement agencies.
There are several groups on social media, which are directly controlled and funded by Hefazat-e-Islam. Main objective of these cyber jihadist groups are to spread anti-India hatred, anti-Hindu hatred, anti-Awami League hatred, anti-democracy hatred, anti-secularism hatred and strongly promote objectives and goals oh pro-Caliphate Hefazat-e-Islam. Members of these cyber jihadist fronts are strictly monitoring social media posts and immediately countering whenever they find any that goes against Hefazat-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh Nationalist Party or Islamist forces. Members of these cyber jihadist forces are extremely desperate and adamant. They are continuing making notoriously offensive remarks on India, Indian politicians (especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi), Awami League and its leaders. While some of those cyber jihadists are even giving direct death threats on social media, there is no visible action from the law enforcement agencies or authorities concerned, despite the fact of those matters being regularly reported in the media.
Islamic Cyber Security
Name of a cyber jihadist group on Facebook caught my attention. It is ‘Islamic Cyber Security’. The group says: “This is a ISLAMIC CYBER SECURITY PAGE what helps public to solve Facebook problems by giving tricks day by day. it gives security on virtual earth for Islam and Islamic Scholar”.
By giving tricks? What tricks they are talking about? Helps Islamists in hacking social media accounts of secularist and anti-Hefazat individuals?
One of the self-claimed crew members of Islamic Cyber Security is an individual named Boshirul Mostafa alias Okasha Abid. He hails from Patiya, Chittagong and been studied Dawrah-e-Hadith’ at Jamiah Islamiah Patiya, while he also has studied at Satbaria Bara Awliya Hamidiya Alim Madrasah and Darul Ansar Al Quran Institute.
MEVBOOK
This organization is run by Ahley Hadith leader Asadullah Ghalib, who was arrested on charges of militancy connections. MEVBOOK operates an encrypted website, which is used as a social media platform of the Islamist forces in Bangladesh.
On Facebook page of MEVBOOK, it describes itself stating: “MEVBOOK is a new trend of new social media. Working-professional people in our country, students are all accustomed to using online at the end of the day. So we are going to build a combination of Three first four social media MEVBOOK”.
Meaning, Islamist and militancy forces in South Asia are silently working in building their own social media platform, and unfortunately, our intelligence agencies are at total dark about such notorious activities.
Islamic Civilian Squad
Although most of the cyber activists of Hefazat-e-Islam in particular as well as madrassa students are connected to ‘Islamic Civilian Squad’, which they describe a ‘Islamic civilian police’, there is no separate website or social media account of ‘Islamic Civilian Squad’ making it extremely dubious entity. Most importantly, there are hundreds of madrassa students and teachers connected to ‘Islamic Civilian Squad’ or ‘Islamic Cyber Security’, who are openly proclaiming themselves as fans and followers of Islamic State ideology. Seeing their social media accounts, anyone can realize, how desperately Islamist forces are growing in Bangladesh.
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Bangladesh should initiate investigation and actions against these cyber jihadist platforms.
