Police in Bangladesh have arrested 31 men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack, an officer said yesterday.
Police chief Masudul Haque Nuruzzaman, from Kushtia district 100km (62 miles) west of the capital Dhaka, said the men were members of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
“Among the 31 arrested was the group’s chief of the Kushtia district who trained and fought in Afghanistan,” said Nuruzzaman.
“The arrests were made on Friday during a raid on a meeting. We have intelligence to suggest they were preparing an attack.”
Jihadi books, leaflets, gunpowder and bomb-making materials were seized during the meeting, he said.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a worldwide group which wants to combine all Muslim countries in a unitary Islamic state or “khilafat”. The group is banned in some countries but not in Bangladesh.
Last month the police raided an Islamic school, or madrasa, on the remote southern island of Bhola and seized a cache of weapons and explosive devices, as well as jihadi literature urging Muslims to take up arms.
The school is run by the British-based charity Green Crescent, which is owned by Briton Faisal Mostafa, who has since been arrested by the Bangladeshi police.
On Thursday, a court indicted Mufti Abdul Hannan, leader of the banned Islamist outfit Harkatul Jihad Islami (Huji), and 13 others for causing the 2001 blast at a city rally that killed 10 and injured scores of people.
The blast occurred in 2001 at Dhaka’s Ramna Batamul area during Pahela Baisakh, the Bengali New Year celebration.
Metropolitan Sessions Judge A N M Bashir Ullah rejected the discharge petitions submitted by the counsel for Hannan and five others and framed charges against all 14 accused.
Five of the accused produced before the court amid tight security pleaded not guilty after the charges brought against them were read out, The Daily Star reported.
Moulana Tajuddin, younger brother of former Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, and seven other accused are absconding. Charges were framed against them in absentia.
The chargesheet said Ramna Batamul, where thousands of people gather to celebrate the Bangla New Year, was chosen as the target because Huji considers Pahela Baishakh celebrations anti-Islamic.
Moulana Tajuddin supplied the bombs. He also supplied grenades for carrying out the attack on an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue on August 21, 2004, the media report said. Agencies