DHAKA, 24 January 2006 — Bangladesh’s most wanted militant and head of an outlawed Jamatul Mujahedeen group has been arrested in India, sources said. The group is blamed for a wave of bomb attacks in the country.
Sheikh Abdur Rahman was picked up from a hide-out in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal on Sunday, The New Age and Amar Desh newspapers said, citing intelligence sources.
There was no official Bangladeshi confirmation of the reports, and Bangladeshi Interior Ministry officials could not be reached for comment.
Indian police, when asked whether Rahman had been held in West Bengal, confirmed they had detained a man but did not say whether he was the fugitive Bangladeshi Islamist leader.
“We have picked up a man on Sunday. We are still verifying the whole thing and who he is,” police Inspector-General Raj Kanojia said by telephone from Calcutta, capital of West Bengal, which shares a large, porous border with Bangladesh.
Bangladeshi newspapers said Indian authorities had taken Rahman, who was picked up from the southern district of 24 Parganas, to New Delhi for interrogation.
Security forces in Bangladesh last week launched a massive hunt on Bangladesh’s western borders after an intelligence tip-off that Rahman was in the area, along with Siddikul Islam Bangla Bhai, chief of another militant group, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh.
Both have been missing since nearly 500 small bombs exploded simultaneously across the country on Aug. 17 last year.
Authorities have blamed the bombings and subsequent suicide attacks on the two groups, which are campaigning for the introduction of Shariah law in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, a report said yesterday quoting Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan that Bangladesh is ready to cooperate with the United States on counter-terrorism measures following a series of blasts.
The “United States had given us the offer... and we are ready to do that. The modality has to be worked out,” the minister was quoted by the private UNB news agency as saying late Sunday. He did not elaborate.
Bangladesh has mobilized thousands of police, paramilitary troops and members of the Rapid Action Battalion to hunt for members of Jamatul Mujahedeen group.
Last month, the United States warned its citizens to take “extra care” in Bangladesh in the wake of the bombings.
“Jamatul Mujahedeen’s introduction of suicide bombers in November represented a significant escalation in its campaign of violence,” the embassy said, adding that the group had adapted its methods and targets to defeat police anti-terrorism measures.
Five Dead, 50 wounded
In an unrelated incident, five people were killed and at least 50 were wounded yesterday when police in northwest Bangladesh opened fire on a crowd of rioting farmers demanding lower electricity charges, police said.
“A crowd of farmers laid siege to an electricity board office.
They surrounded the place and the police fired. Five people died,” a police official said.
The incident at an office at Shibganj in Chapai Nawabganj district, some 250 km from Dhaka, followed a similar protest outside the same office on Jan. 4 when police shot at the crowd killing two and injuring more than 15 people.
District Superintendent of Police Rezaul Karim said earlier he could only confirm one dead and around 50 injured although he understood that six of the wounded were in a serious condition.
“They came to the office and attacked police. They torched 10 vehicles. We showed extreme restraint. At first we fired blanks to disperse them. Then, to protect ourselves, we fired,” he said.
Between 10 and 12 of those injured had suffered bullet wounds, said district administrator Rafiqul Islam.
