Dhaka – A businessman was arrested for his alleged involvement in financing terrorists who carried out attacks in a number of places in Bangladesh, police said on Wednesday.

The Rapid Action Battalion picked up Manzur Elahi, a garment businessman, from Dhaka’s Uttara area as he allegedly gave Tk 500,000 to a militant group called Shaheed Hamza Brigade.

Battalion spokesman Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan said the businessman provided money to Moniruzzaman Masud, a leader of the new militant outfit.

Elahi was accused of financing the group for carrying out subversive activities in Bangladesh.

Acting on a tip-off, the battalion members raided House-7, Road-13, Sector-14, Uttara and arrested the accused on Tuesday night, said Lieutenant Colonel Mitta Uddin Ahmed, a RAB official said.

Manzur transferred the money through Islami Bank at Nizamuddin Road Branch in Chittagong to Moniruzzaman Masud’s account in September 2014.

Bangladeshis security forces enhanced anti-militant raids in the past months after the Islamist militants attacked a restaurant in Dhaka on July 1, 2016 leaving 20 civilians, including 17 foreign nationals, killed.

The Islamic State, a radical Sunni group operating in Iraq and Syria, claimed the responsibility of the attacks, but Bangladeshi government said it was carried out by the home-grown terrorists.

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