Police hunt for 100 members of 2 Islamic militant groups

Anwar Ali, Dinajpur


Police in the entire northern region have been frantically looking for some one hundred alleged members of Islamic militant groups--Jamaatul Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB) and Shahadat-e-Al Hiqma (SAH).

In Dinajpur, police gathered detailed information about the identification of the seven millitants who lived in the tin-shed house at Gurgoba area in the town.


They also got detaits of some 80 members of the JMB and raided several places in Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Rangpur, Panchagarh, Nilphamari and Joypurhat in the last three days.


Police, however, could not arrest anybody as the millitants went into hiding following Dinajpur blasts.


Dinajpur police also collected some contact numbers of the millitants from the two mobile phones, recovered from the tin-shed house.

The OC of the Kotwali Thana in Dinajpur said that the bombs and bomb- making chemicals recovered from Gurgoba were similar to those found in Parbatipur upazila in May last.


On May 20, 2002, police arrested eight JMB members Shahabul Islam Sharif, Obaidullah, Lutfar Rahman, Mosharraf Hossain Zulfiqur, Anwar Hossain, Umar Faruk, Abu Bakkar Siddique and Mustakim from Zahanabad area in Parbatipur.


About 25 petrol bombs and some firearms and chemicals were also recovered from their possession.


Mustakim and Zulfiqur, out of the eight, were freed on bail on February 7 last.


The investigation of the Parbatipur incident was yet to be completed, police said.


In Rajshahi, Shahadat-e Al Hiqma (SAH) could not draw police's attention even after its chairman Sayed Kawsar Hussain in an open press conference on February 8 declared the emergence of the millitant party.


Police arrested an alleged SAH member on February 16.


Police filed a case in this regard accusing Shamim, another SAH member Mojibor, and SAH chairman Sayed Kawsar Hussain, but did not mention the party's name.

Shamim was taken on a two-day remand yesterday after police sought a 10-day remand at the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court.