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Top Bangladesh militant captured: police
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-03-06 11:20
Bangladesh's second top Islamist militant was captured on Monday after a
gunbattle with security forces in a northern district, police said.
They
said Siddikul Islam Bangla Bhai, chief of the outlawed Jagrata Muslim Janata
Bangladesh group, was arrested at his hideout with two of his associates in the
district of Mymensingh.
His capture comes four days after another top
fugitive Islamist, Shayek Abdur Rahman, was detained in the northeastern town of
Sylhet.
Security forces had surrounded Bangla Bahi's hideout since
Sunday midnight and closed in before sunrise.
The militant and his men
threw bombs at the security forces and later opened fire, triggering a shootout,
police said. It was not known if anyone was killed or wounded during the
fighting.
Shayek Rahman led another outlawed Islamist group,
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.
Both groups are fighting for the introduction of
sharia law in Bangladesh, a mainly Muslim democracy, and are blamed for a wave
of bombings, including suicide attacks, that have killed at least 30 people and
wounded 150 since last August.
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