Through Agence France-Presse: Bangladesh police have arrested the chief of an Islamist organisation at his hideout in Dhaka, officials mentioned Saturday, months after the release of a crackdown towards the crowd.
Shamin Mahfuz, the founding father of Jamaat al Ansar fil Hindal Sharqiya, is accused of serving to to run militant coaching camps within the nation’s restive Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Police mentioned Mahfuz was once arrested overdue Friday at the side of his spouse in an commercial suburb of the capital, the place they have been discovered with a pistol, explosives and bomb-making fabrics.
“An anti-terrorism case has been filed towards Mahfuz. We search 10 days of remand to query him,” Mohammad Asaduzzaman of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism unit informed newshounds.
Attorneys for Mahfuz may no longer be reached for remark.
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Asaduzzaman mentioned the Sharqiya founder had first been detained in 2014 and got here into touch with different outlawed extremist teams whilst in jail.
He mentioned Mahfuz had brokered a deal for the organisation to make use of coaching camps run by means of the Kuki-Chin Nationwide Entrance (KNF), a basically Christian tribal rebel workforce.
Ultimate October the rustic’s elite Speedy Motion Battalion safety pressure mentioned it had introduced an attack on KNF and Sharqiya encampments in 3 far flung hill cities close to the Indian border, arresting dozens of folks.
The crackdown compelled masses of villagers to escape around the border and take safe haven within the northeast Indian state of Mizoram.
Recent clashes between the KNF and the Bangladesh army killed no less than 5 infantrymen within the final 4 months, the military has mentioned.
The KNF rejected any connections with Sharqiya in a Fb put up final yr.
Bangladesh safety forces introduced a national force towards Islamist extremists final decade after a chain of high-profile terror assaults that killed just about a dozen atheist writers, secular and homosexual activists and minorities.
Within the deadliest incident, contributors of an Islamic State-linked workforce killed 22 civilians together with 17 foreigners right through a siege at an upmarket eating place in Dhaka in 2016.
Bangladesh police shot lifeless greater than 100 folks in national raids on extremist hideouts and arrested hundreds of alleged contributors of extremist teams.
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