They were placed on a ten-day remand yesterday at Bandar Police Station.

The police in separate raids arrested sub-assistant engineer of Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd (CUFL) Abdul Hamid Mian, Suncrest Cola officials Humayun Kabir, Mohammad Raju and Jamal Uddin, and Munir Khan, Mohammad Akkas and Nurul Islam Khokon in Fakirhat and Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ) areas on Thursday night.

The seven are active members of the Hizbut Tawhid, an Islamist organisation that aims at establishing Islamic rule in the country through armed revolution.

The organisation has been operating in the country since 1994 under the direction of its country chief Bayezid Khan Panni, a cousin of former deputy speaker of parliament Humayun Khan Panni.

It has around fifty members including females in the port city. The female members of the organisation conduct their activities persuading the neighbours by distributing Islami books and leaflets.

The male members gather at the residence of Humayun Kabir, ameer of north division of the organisation's city unit, in the city's Shantibagh area every Monday at 8:00pm.

Humayun's wife Rabeya Bashri, who is also an active member of Hizbut Tawhid, told The Daily Star that they have been working in the city for the last five years.

She denied having any connection with the outlawed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). "The police arrested my husband and others without any specific allegation and the Hizbut Tawhid has no military section or militant activities," she said.

She, however, expressed satisfaction over her husband's arrest, saying, "It will give our organisation and its activities better publicity and more people will be able to learn about us by reading newspaper reports."

Humayun's colleagues at the Suncrest depot at Dhanialapara became astonished after hearing about his involvement with Hizbut Tawhid. "We knew him as a polite person involved with some Islami organisation but we had no idea that it could be a militant one," one Suncrest Cola employee told The Daily Star.

Arrested Abdul Hamid Mian, south division ameer of the Hizbut Tawhid city unit, joined the militant organisation in 2003. He along with five other CUFL officials and around 20 fourth-class employees of the factory are actively involved with Hizbut Tawhid, sources at CUFL said.

During a visit to his residence at the CUFL officers' colony yesterday none of his family was found. The neighbours said Hamid's wife left home with their two sons on Friday night following Hamid's arrest.

One neighbour said Hamid would often visit him with Islami books and motivate him to follow Islam according to their way.

Habibur Rahman, muazzin of the CUFL Colony Jame Mosque, told The Daily Star, "Hamid used to argue that we are following Islam in a wrong way as we take monthly allowances from the CUFL authority."

One source said a few other CUFL officers and workers are also involved with Hizbut Tawhid and they visit other workers and officers in the colony every month to invite them to join their organisation.