Kamran Reza Chowdhury/Dhaka
The leader of a Rohingya insurgent group blamed for instigating attacks that provoked a deadly offensive by the Myanmar military and the forced cross-border exodus of Rohingya in 2017 has not spilled “significant information” since his arrest earlier this week, Bangladesh police said.
Ataullah Abu Jununi, leader of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), was arrested on Tuesday at an apartment near Dhaka where he had been staying for four months.
The Rapid Action Battalion, an elite security force, said it took him into custody on suspicion of terrorism and illegal entry. Nine suspected accomplices were also arrested that day from northern Mymensingh district, RAB said.
Mohammad Shahinur Alom, the officer-in-charge of Siddhirganj police station, said Ataullah and his accomplices were being interrogated for 10 days under a court order.
“He is behaving in a very modest way. He has yet to give any significant information. Let us see what happens in the next several days,” Shahinur Alom told BenarNews on Friday.
Ataullah’s arrest occurred the same day that Southeast Asian NGO Fortify Rights released a 76-page report alleging that ARSA and another group had committed potential war crimes through killing, abducting and torturing Rohingya who were sheltering at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh.
The report also alleges that ARSA under Ataullah’s leadership carried out coordinated attacks on government security outposts in Myanmar in August 2017, prompting the Myanmar military and Buddhist vigilante groups to launch a brutal offensive against the entire Rohingya population in Rakhine state.
The crackdown forced about 740,000 to flee to the Bangladesh camps, which are home to about 1 million refugees.
“As the commander-in-chief of ARSA, Ataullah is responsible for ordering and overseeing egregious violations of international law, including targeted killings, abductions, and the torture of Rohingya civilians,” Fortify Rights CEO Matthew Smith said in a news release on Thursday, after Ataullah was arrested.
“This is a critical moment. Bangladesh has taken the important step of arresting Ataullah and others, and we encourage the ICC prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant for Ataullah to prosecute him in The Hague,” Smith said, referring to the International Criminal Court.
Who is Ataullah?
Born in a refugee camp in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi in 1977, Attaulah and his parents moved to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where he was enrolled in an Islamic religious school, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).
As a young boy, he worked at a mosque in Saudi Arabia and attended the Rohingya community meetings where his speeches impressed Saudis, who backed his efforts to gain rights for Rohingya Muslims.
ICG said Ataullah became leader of ARSA in 2016. In 2017, he posted a video vowing to fight for the rights of the persecuted Rohingya in Rakhine, Myanmar.
In the Aug. 28 video statement, Ataullah stated that ARSA was established in response to Burmese government and paramilitary abuses against the stateless Rohingya community.
“Our primary objective under ARSA is to liberate our people from dehumanized oppression perpetrated by all successive Burmese regimes,” he said.
What is ARSA?
ARSA, a Rohingya insurgent group formerly known as Al-Yaaqin, gained international notoriety after it launched coordinated attacks on government security outposts in Rakhine state in August 2017, leading to the bloody crackdown against the Rohingya people.
In September 2021, popular Rohingya leader Muhib Ullah, who had visited the White House in Washington as part of his advocacy for Rohingya to be repatriated to Myanmar, was assassinated at his office in a refugee camp.
After years of denying an ARSA presence in the camps, Bangladesh authorities in June 2022 said Ataullah had ordered ARSA members to kill Muhib.
In 2023, ARSA joined forces with the Myanmar government, according to the ICG.
“Despite the Myanmar military junta being responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity against Rohingya, ARSA and the junta have joined forces to fight the Arakan Army, one of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed organizations based in Rakhine state,” the ICG said.
How are Rohingya reacting?
After hearing the news of the ARSA leader’s arrest, refugee camp resident Mohmmad Amin said he had paid a 300,000 taka (U.S. $2,467) ransom to be released after members of the Rohingya militant group abducted him.
“Ataullah sold the Rohingya people for his personal gain. We are happy for his arrest. We hope Bangladesh will give him tough punishment,” Amin told BenarNews, adding, “Ataullah was involved in the murder of Muhib Ullah.”
In the same camp, a group of Rohingya circulated a video asking Bangladesh’s interim government to release Ataullah, terming him a leader fighting for the rights of the Rohingya.
Meanwhile, Imtiaz Ahmed, a professor of international relations at Dhaka University, questioned the report that Ataullah lived in an apartment near Bangladesh’s capital for months without being arrested, saying it was not believable. Still, the arrest is a significant development in relations with Myanmar, he said.
“Ataullah Jununi’s arrest is a significant signal from Bangladesh to the Arakan Army and the central government that ARSA is under control,” Ahmed told BenarNews.
Across the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Rakhine state, the anti-junta Arakan Army rebels have made significant gains in battles with junta troops to gain control of the region.
“The U.N. secretary-general has stressed that Bangladesh should talk to the Arakan Army. Ataullah’s arrest could create a congenital atmosphere for probable repatriation of the Rohingya refugees, provided that Arakan Army and the central government agree,” he said.
Abdur Rahman in Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, contributed to this report.
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