2 ‘ABT militants’ detained in Gazipur
They were planning to attack Kashimpur jail, Rab says
Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) claimed to have detained two active militants of banned outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) from Gazipur Chowrasta last night.
The detainees include Rashedul Islam alias Swapan, 24, chief coordinator of Gazipur district, according to a short message service (SMS) floated by the elite force.
“They were reportedly planning to attack Kashimpur central jail to free ABT chief Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani and its other leaders from the prison,” reads the SMS.
Further details are awaited to be disclosed at a press briefing later in the day at Uttara’s Rab-1 office in Dhaka.
On December 31 last year, a Dhaka court sentenced Rahmani to five-year imprisonment for killing blogger Ahmed Rajib Haidar -- the first in series of blogger killings in Bangladesh.
Two others were handed down death penalty and five others sentenced to different terms of imprisonment in the brutal killing.
Rajib, a blogger and activist of Shahbagh movement, was hacked to death on February 15, 2013 near his house at Mirpur, Dhaka.