Untold stories of a Bangladeshi woman

by Vinod Mehta

(March 23, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) Couple of months back, a middle aged Bangladeshi woman named Marufa Sultana Nila aka Shatabdi was named as the main actor of anti-Jihadist feature film BLACK, which is directed by award winning journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury.

While signing Shatabdi for this film, the producing company of BLACK, Vibgyor Films or its director and the entire team were very much unaware of the background stories of this woman, nor they could even imagine in their wildest dream that, she was planted right inside such a noble project by dangerous Islamist terror groups.

Marufa Sultana Nila, with a radical Islamist background with several months attending in orientation course organized by Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh , during 2005-2006 as well as with madrassa background was recruited by the militancy supremos for conducting her assigned mission in sabotaging any activities against Jihad and Islamist militancy. After being appointed, she attempted a number of times of obtaining visa for Western country, where she was supposed to implement a secret project of infecting the Westerners with various Sexually Transmitted Diseases. With the financial help from the Islamists, Marufa Nila managed to get admitted with Dhaka’s Sikder Medical College , where she has already completed graduation as a physician.

She lives in Dhaka’s East Rajabazar area, where, according to neighbors, Marufa Nila’s lifestyle is extremely dubious. He moves from her house under Burqa and during day times, she moves to various unknown places in the city as well as in various cities in Bangladesh and foreign countries.

In 2009, Marufa Sultana Nila traveled to Nepal alone, though according to Bangladeshi culture, travel by any single girl to foreign nations is not seen in normal way. It is learnt that, she met a representative from Al Qaeda in Nepal during this trip, where she was also accompanied by one Tanveer Ahmed, who is the nephew of Bangladesh’s former army chief General Moeen U Ahmed. It is learnt that, through Tanveer Ahmed, Marufa Sultana Nila managed to receive fund from Al Qaeda, as well she successfully remitted the amount to Tanveer’s foreign account. In Nepalese hotel, Marufa Nila stayed with Tanveer with the false identity of being couple.

In 2010, she once against visited Malaysian and Indonesia , again with Tanveer Ahmed with the identity of husband and wife, and during this time, she met a number of representatives of various Islamist groups including Laskar-e-Taiba, Tablighi Jamaat, Hizbut Tahrir and Al Qaeda. Tanveer Ahmed this time, once again, helped his ‘loving girlfriend’ Marufa Sulatana Nila by remitting a significant amount of money to a foreign account, which is operated by Tanveer’s father, Iftekhar Ahmed Tipu.

Marufa Sultana, on completion of her madrassa education and being admitted to medial college, entered Bangladeshi media as a model, who was patronized, funded and promoted by one Sayeed Iskander, at the request of several important figures at Hawa Bhaban, a building known to be political headquarters of Bangladesh Nationalist Party. She performed as the model of Dandy Dyeing, the company owned by Sayeed Iskander and Tareq Rahman, respectively younger brother and son of former Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia.

During this time, Marufa Nila was sent to several important foreign diplomats, mostly belonging to Arab nations by Sayeed Iskander and Tareq Rahman. She played important role behind WorldTel project as well as a number of business ventures undertaken by some foreign companies, against handsome amount of ‘kickback’. Major segment of such illegally accrued fund went into the account of Nila’s boyfriend Tanveern Ahmed, who married her in Dhaka in 2009.

Before getting married to Tanveer Ahmed in 2009, Marufa Nila used to work as the agent of General Moeen U Ahmed in collecting ransom and bribes from various businessmen and politicians, right after the illegal military coup in 2007.

Tanveer Ahmed and his uncle established a ‘Comfort House’ in Dhaka , inside the so-called office of an entertainment magazine, which ultimately turned into a place for various dubious people of visiting on a regular basis and having sexual relations with Marufa Nila.

In Bangladeshi entertainment industry and media members, Marufa Sultana Nila is much knows as a prostitute as well as active member of Islamist militancy group. She also was engaged in dealing in drugs during 2007-2008 for the sake of collecting fund of religious militancy groups.

Local and foreign intelligence agencies are already keeping eyes on activities of Marufa Sultana Nila as well as her husband Tanveer Ahmed. It may be mentioned here that, Nila is Tanveer’s fourth wife. Tanveer Ahmed has three more wives with four children. It is even anticipated that, due to his connection with Marufa Nila, Tanveer Ahmed has been able to get some hidden funding from some Islamist militancy groups for his family business concern named IFAD Group.