Zakir Hossain / Dhaka
Bangladesh police have arrested Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi, the 48-year-old leader of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), who is accused of carrying out attacks against Myanmar security forces.
Jununi was arrested near Dhaka along with five associates by the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Tuesday, while four more were detained in Mymensingh.
Narayanganj district police chief Praytush Kumar Majumder said Jununi was suspected of murder and acts of sabotage. A district court later approved a 10-day remand for custodial interrogation, police inspector Kaiyum Khan confirmed.
Jununi has led ARSA in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State since 2016. The group was accused of deadly attacks on security posts in 2017, triggering a brutal military crackdown that forced over 750,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Jununi first appeared publicly in videos with masked gunmen, vowing to “liberate the Rohingya from dehumanized oppression.”
He is also accused of involvement in the murder of a Bangladeshi military intelligence officer and leading ARSA’s cross-border drug smuggling, kidnappings, abductions, extortion, and torture in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh.