DHAKA, 2 March 2006 — Bangladesh’s most wanted fugitive has been cornered by the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), in his hide-out in Sylhet district, sources said.

A stand-off at the house where Sheikh Abdur Rahman, head of the banned militant group Jamatul Mujahedeen, is believed holed up continued yesterday as his wife pleaded with him to surrender. “We are now reviewing the strategy as Rahman has so far refused to give in,” a senior RAB official told newsmen at the scene.

Rahman, the suspected mastermind of a deadly spate of bombings, is believed to be inside along with a “huge” quantity of explosives, said Sylhet police chief Ansaruddin Khan Pathan.

Members of the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) earlier yesterday stormed part of the house in the northeastern city of Sylhet and arrested nine people at gunpoint, including the wife and two daughters of Rahman.

Security forces smashed open the windows of a room believed to contain the explosives to allow firefighters to douse them with water, RAB officers told the private NTV station.

“We have confirmed that Rahman is inside along with two of his accomplices,” RAB Director General Abdul Aziz told reporters at the scene.

“But we will be patient. If it takes two days, then we will wait to get them caught alive,” he added.

Television stations earlier showed two burqa-clad women handcuffed to plainclothes police being escorted from the house. Each woman was carrying a small child and a young boy also accompanied them.

Rahman’s wife was later brought back to urge her husband via a megaphone to surrender. RAB personnel backed up by hundreds of police and paramilitaries swooped on the house early yesterday after a tip-off.

Marksmen were posted on the roofs of surrounding buildings and an area of eight square kilometers was cordoned off.

Officers using megaphones urged Rahman to surrender peacefully. A man claiming to be Rahman responded by shouting back, urging the officers to join him in his battle to establish Shariah in the country, mayor of the city Badruddin Ahmed Kamran said.

“Another man and a woman shouted at us threatening that they would die for Allah,” he added.

Police say Rahman masterminded a series of blasts and suicide bombings since last Aug. 17, when more than 400 explosive devices were detonated almost simultaneously in towns and cities across the country.

At least 28 people including four suicide bombers have been killed in the attacks.

Leaflets left at blast sites bearing the name of his group called for the imposition of Shariah in the nation. The judiciary has been a prime target with four lawyers and two judges among the dead. Police said Rahman had threatened to blow himself up if security forces stormed the house.

“He told us from his house that he would not surrender to those who abide by man-made law. He wants Allah’s law in the country. We could hear him preaching in the house throughout the night,” Pathan said.

In December police arrested the group’s military head and chief coordinator of the suicide bombings at a hideout in Dhaka.

Rahman, who fought in the Afghan war, formed his group in the late 1990s. Last month he was sentenced in absentia to 40 years in jail for abetting the murders of the two judges. — Additional input from agencies.