Police have claimed to have arrested three suspected Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) members, including the mastermind behind the murder of a Hindu priest in Panchagarh’s Debiganj.
Published : 26 Feb 2016, 01:27 PM
At a media briefing on Friday, Rangpur divisional police chief Humayun Kabir said the arrests were made during raids in different places of Panchagarh and Nilphamari Thursday night.
“These three are among the five who carried out the assassination. All of them are active local JMB members. The mastermind behind the (priest’s) killing is also among the arrestees,” he said.
The deputy inspector general of police, however, did not divulge their names.
He said they were conducting raids to catch the two others.
On Feb 21, assailants slit the throat of 50-year-old Jagneshwar Roy, head priest of Santo Gaurio temple, after attacking him with sharp weapons.
Witnesses said three men, armed with sharp weapons and firearms, had taken part in the killing. The assailants opened fire and hurled bombs while fleeing on a motorbike, they said.
DIG Kabir said police had recovered two pistols used in the attack, along with three magazines, three crude bombs, three knives and five bullets. A bike belonging to the assailants had also been seized.
One of the arrestees slaughtered the priest, another kept the weapons in his house before and after the incident and the third worked as a watcher, he said.
Referring to their statements, Kabir dismissed the claim made on the US-based SITE Intelligence website that Islamic State militants were involved in the priest’s murder.
“JMB operatives committed the murder,” he said.
Kabir also claimed that JMB had carried out all the recent attacks in the northern districts.
Rabindranath Roy, brother of Jagneshwar, filed a case over the murder and police lodged another case under the Arms and Explosives Act against three unidentified persons.
Police earlier detained suspected JMB leaders Khalilur Rahman and Babul Hossain, Islami Chhatra Shibir leader Jahangir Hossain and a Rajshahi University student over the murder.
The student was freed later as police could not find any links of his to the incident.