DHAKA, 24 August 2005 — Bangladesh police yesterday questioned a prominent Islamic leader arrested boarding a flight to Dubai and claimed that they had made “substantial progress” in their investigation into last week’s nationwide wave of bombings.

Intelligence officers were interrogating Maulana Fariduddin Masud, a senior member of the Jamiatul Ulama-e-Islam, a body of prominent Islamic clerics.

He was arrested at Zia International Airport on Monday.

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court in Dhaka yesterday granted a five-day police remand for Maulana Masud when he was produced before the court.

A bail petition for Masud was submitted before the court saying that the case was politically motivated and the arrested person had always worked for peace.

But Metropolitan Court Magistrate Shafiq Anwar rejected the prayer after hearing the bail petition and granted the five-day remand for Maulana Masud although police prayed for a seven-day remand.

A Home Ministry spokesman said Masud recently received a sizeable sum of money from a foreign Islamic charity and police were investigating whether the money funded the outlawed Jamatul Mujahedeen, which authorities have named as the prime suspect in the blasts.

“Maulana Masud is now under police custody. He is being interrogated as there are some specific charges against him,” the spokesman said. He declined to disclose further details.

Inspector General of Police Abdul Kaiyum said authorities had made “substantial progress” in their investigation after more police raids on madrasas following last Wednesday’s 434 blasts that killed two people and injured more than 100.

Kaiyum said 150 people from different towns and cities across the country had been arrested and some had confessed to planting bombs.

A senior security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Maulana Masud was arrested in connection with the bombings.”

The official said foreign travel bans had been imposed on more than 100 people including Masud. He did not identify the others or say why the ban was imposed.

Leaflets of the Jamatul Mujahedeen, calling for the introduction of Islamic law in the world’s third most populous Muslim country, were left at the sites of the near-simultaneous explosions that shook the country.

Police are hunting the leader of Jamatul Mujahedeen, Sheikh Abdur Rahman, saying he is believed to have masterminded the attacks. They say many of the people interrogated have told them that Rahman orchestrated the bombings.

Masud is a former director of the Islamic Foundation, the government body which finances the nation’s mosques.

Police are also looking for Siddiqul Islam, also known as Bangla Bhai, the alleged leader of the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, which police believe is a sister organization of Jamatul Mujahedeen.

Both groups, which want secular Bangladesh to adopt strict Islamic law, were banned in February after being linked to a wave of bombings at charities, Muslim shrines and musical events.

“We’re now pretty sure Abdur Rahman was the mastermind of the attack and everything will unravel if we can arrest him,” a security source said Monday, describing the leader as “about 50 and fluent in English.” Rahman was in Afghanistan and returned home in the late 1990s to take over three madrasas following the death of his father, the source said.

Rahman, whose father was a religious teacher, studied at Madinah University in Saudi Arabia after completing schooling at a local madrasa, another police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.