DHAKA, 30 August 2005 — A top leader of a banned group, blamed for last weeks serial blasts, was arrested in Bangladesh yesterday, sources said.
Mohammad Nasir, a leader of the Jamatul Mujahedeen, was among the latest of 169 people from towns and cities across Bangladesh arrested since the blasts on Aug. 17, officials said.
“We arrested Nasir, one of the leading figures (of the Jamatul Mujahedeen) in Khagrachhari (Sunday),” Home Ministry spokesman Mohammad Mohsin said.
“We hope to get some information from him,” Mohsin said, declining to elaborate.
Mohsin said six Jamatul Mujahedeen members had confessed their direct involvement in the blasts “but they were mainly base-level workers.”
A total of 434 small bombs exploded in all but one of the country’s main towns and cities, killing three people and injuring over 100.
The death toll rose after one of those injured in the blasts, who was detained by police as a suspect, died of his injuries in a Dhaka hospital Sunday.
Leaflets bearing Jamatul Mujahedeen’s name and calling for the introduction of Islamic law were found at blast sites.
The group’s top leader, Sheikh Abdur Rahman, is still in hiding. Police last week charged him in absentia with masterminding the attacks and a warrant has been issued for his arrest.
Police are also looking for Siddiqul Islam, also known as Bangla Bhai, the leader of the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh. Police say it is a sister organization of Jamatul Mujahedeen.
Bangladesh troops seized thousands of rounds of ammunition yesterday in a forest near the country’s border with Myanmar in the latest of a series of weapons and ammunition hauls, security officials said.
“Some 15,000 ammunition rounds of AK-47 rifles were busted during an ongoing raid to flush out clandestine militants,” an official said.
Meanwhile, four members of Bangladesh’s elite anti-crime force have been sentenced to five years in prison after they were found guilty of robbing a cattle trader, a court official said yesterday. Judge Towfiqul Alam also fined the Rapid Action Battalion, or RAB, members 5,000 takas ($84) each during the hearing before a packed courthouse in the capital, Dhaka, said court official Abdul Alim. Two informants received the same punishment, he said.
The four RAB members and informants had gone to the residence of cattle trader Ratan Ali in March and robbed him of 800,000 takas ($14,000), the court heard.
Ali told the court that the RAB members and their informants threatened to kill him if he refused to hand over the money.
As the agency members left the house, the victim’s family cried for help, prompting passers-by to detain one of them. Police later recovered only a portion of the money.
Three of the four convicted agency members and one of the two informants were in the court for sentencing Monday. The others have not been captured.
