Police to question 12 al Qaeda men for three days 

Police have remanded 12 suspected members of al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), including two of its top leaders, for three days in a case under antiterrorism and explosives acts.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 3 July 2015, 01:00 PM
Updated : 3 July 2015, 01:00 PM

Dar-us-Salam Police Station Sub-Inspector Mohammad Jalaluddin presented the 12 before Dhaka’s Metropolitan Magistrates Court on Friday and appealed to grill them for seven days.

But judge Molla Saiful Islam remanded the accused in their custody for three days.

Elite police unit RAB arrested them in several areas in Dhaka in a drive on Wednesday that began in the morning and ran past midnight.

Massive amounts of explosives, bomb-making materials, weapons and training manuals were found in their possession.

RAB said they had links with banned radical group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Bangladesh (HuJI-B).

The AQIS, which claimed responsibility for killings of bloggers Avijit Roy and Ananrta Bijoy Das for criticising religious extremism, were planning an attack in Dhaka after Eid-ul-Fitr, the elite force said.

In the remand petition, the SI said they were also planning to free HuJI leader Mawlana Moin Uddin aka Abu Zandal aka Masum Billah, sentenced to death for the bomb attack on a British high commissioner, by sawing off sewerage grills at Dhaka Central Jail.

Of the 12 arrested, Mawlana Mainul Islam was ‘the chief coordinator of AQIS in Bangladesh’, and Mawlana Zafar Amin was his adviser, according to the RAB.

The others are members of AQIS in Bangladesh – Sayeed Tamim, Md Mosharraf Hossain, Abdur Rahman Bepari, ‘Alamin’ aka ‘Ibrahim’, Md Mojahidul Islam aka ‘Nakib’ aka ‘Sharif’, Ashraful Islam aka Abul Hasem, Rabiul Islam aka ‘Hasan’, Md Jabibullah, Md Shahidul Islam aka ‘Sagar’, and Altaf Hossain aka Al Mamun.