Members of Jamatul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya killed a fellow Islamist militant of the group due to an internal dispute, police have said after quizzing arrested suspects.
A court has ordered retrieval of the body buried in the remote forests of the Chattogram Hill Tracts, said Md Alamgir Hossain, chief of Ruma Police Station in Bandarban.
Alamgir said on Saturday that police took two of the arrested suspects to the site and located the grave in the Luangmual Para area on Friday.
The law enforcers attempted to retrieve the body in the presence of an executive magistrate on Saturday but cancelled the plan due to adverse weather conditions, said the police officer.
Md Mamun Shibli, chief executive of Ruma Upazila administration, said they would start for the site on Sunday.
Police did not reveal the identity of the militant killed in the dispute.
The Rapid Action Battalion on Thursday said it arrested five suspected members of Jamatul Ansar in the remote forests of Roangchhari and Thanchi.
The suspects allegedly had training at the camps of the tribal separatist group Kuki-Chin National Front or KNF, also known as the Bawm Party, in the hill tracts.
The suspects have been identified as Nizamuddin Hiron alias Yusuf, 30, Sadikur Rahman Sumon alias Farkun, 30, Saleh Ahmed alias Saiha, 27, Bayezid Islam alias Bairu, 21, and an unnamed 17-year-old boy.
Alamgir said the four adult suspects revealed the information about the killing during quizzing in police custody.
The RAB said the teenage suspect was among the eight Cumilla youths who had left home to join militancy. All five were on a list of 55 radicalised youths who had been reported missing by their families.
The RAB and the Army have been conducting a joint operation in the hill tracts to apprehend the members of Jamatul Ansar and the Bawm Party for over two months.
As many as 12 members of Jamatul Ansar and 13 of the Bawm Party have so far been arrested.
Previously arrested members of Jamatul Ansar described in custody how the new militant group trained recruits, tackled rebellions ‘brutally’ and fought a tribal organisation in the hill tracts.
Four rebels tried to flee but were caught by the Bawm Party and faced “inhumane torture”.
Members of Jamatul Ansar treated the rebels like slaves and gave them up to 100 lashings a day.
The group’s leader Shamin Mahfuz lived in a separate room in the training camp and had armed guards posted outside.
Bawm Party leader Nathan Bawm met only Shamin during visits to the camp. Police had earlier said Shamin was close to Nathan when they were students at Dhaka University. Shamin studied sociology while Nathan was a student of the university’s Faculty of Fine Arts.
