Share this story!            

R E G I O N: Banned group calls for Islamic rule in Bangladesh

* Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen threatens to strike again unless the country resorts to Islamic law

DHAKA: A banned Islamic militant group blamed for hundreds of bomb blasts last week across Bangladesh has threatened to strike again unless the government introduces Islamic rule in the impoverished country.

If Dhaka authorities failed to establish Islamic law or tried to arrest any member of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, “(we) will take direct action,” the group said in a statement on the website “jihadunspun.com”. “Everybody is the enemy of Islam who wants to launch democracy as an institutional form,” said the English-language statement seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

“Therefore we invite the ruling party and also the opposition to initiate the rule of Islam within a short time in Bangladesh.”

Two people were killed and about 100 injured when hundreds of homemade bombs exploded simultaneously across the country last Wednesday, triggering an unprecedented security alarm among Bangladesh’s 140 million people, most of whom are Muslims. No individual or group has claimed responsibility for the bombings but copies of a leaflet found at most of the blast sites carried a call by Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen to impose Islamic rule on democratic secular Bangladesh.

The leaflet also warned the United States and Britain against occupation of Muslim nations.

There was no immediate government comment on the latest threat by Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, which it banned in February.

Security forces launched a nationwide hunt after the serial blasts, detaining more than 150 suspects. But the widely circulated Dainik Ittefaq and Dainik Sangbad newspapers quoted police sources as saying that Shayek Abdur Rahman, spiritual leader of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen – who they said masterminded the bombings – had since fled the country along with 16 associates.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh police said on Tuesday they had made “substantial progress” in their investigation into last week’s nationwide wave of bombings as they questioned a prominent Islamic leader arrested boarding a flight to Dubai.

Intelligence officers were interrogating Moulana Fariduddin Masud, a senior member of the Jamiat Ulamaye Islam, a body of prominent Islamic clerics. He was arrested at Zia International Airport Monday.

“We’re interrogating him about his departure and frequent travels abroad,” Inspector General of Police Abdul Qayyum told the news agency.

The national police chief declined to comment on newspaper reports that police were probing whether Masud, who heads several Islamic charities, funded another Islamic group – the outlawed Jamayetul Mujahideen – which authorities have named as the prime suspect in the blasts.

But Qayyum said authorities had made “substantial progress” in their investigation after more police raids on madrassas or Islamic seminaries after last Wednesday’s 434 blasts that killed two people and injured more than 100. Qayyum said some 150 people from different towns and cities across the country had been arrested and some had confessed to planting bombs.

A senior security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Moulana Masud was arrested in connection with the bombings.”

The official said foreign travel bans had been imposed on over 100 people, including Masud. He did not identify the other people or say why the ban was imposed. reuters

Home | Foreign

Share this story!