3 ‘Huji men’ held in city

Detectives claimed to have detained three suspected members of banned militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji) from Postogola in Dhaka last night.

The detainees were identified as Md Abdullah, Md Ridwan, and Shofiqul Islam alias Ripon.

A team of bomb disposal unit of Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police held the members from the Postogola bridge area around 11:30am.

“During primary quizzing, Abdullah and Ridwan confessed they were preparing to go Pakistan or Afghanistan for receiving militant training,” said Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of DMP, at a press briefing at the DMP media centre.

The trio were arrested upon information obtained from four Huji leaders arrested along with huge cache of explosives and bomb-related materials on October 25.

“They had planned to take military training from Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. And in this regard they had prepared passports and awaiting visas,” Monirul added.

“At least six or seven Huji men returned to the country one or two years ago after completing training abroad,” Monirul said adding only Huji men, taken this kind of foreign training while JMB and ABT takes training lessons within the territory of Bangladesh.