Charges framed against 19 Jamaat leaders, activists

A Dhaka court yesterday framed charges against 19 Jamaat-e-Islami men, including former lawmaker Mujibur Rahman from Rajshahi, in a case filed against them for possessing ''bomb making materials'' and ''anti-state” leaflets in October 28 last year.
Judge Mujibul Kamal of Special Tribunal-9 framed the charges and fixed July 7 to start trial of the case.
Mujibur, an assistant secretary general of Jamaat and president of Sramik Kalyan Federation, Jamaat's associate body; and the others, now on bail, pleaded not guilty and demanded justice before the court after the charges were read out.
Mahfuzur Rahman, Jamaat Mirpur thana (west) unit ameer; Kazirul Islam, an executive member of Jamaat; Shafiqul Alam, Khulna city unit nayeb-e-ameer; SA Abdul Hai, the federation's publicity secretary; and Abdul Karim, a leader of Jamaat's ward-12 unit, were among the accused.
On October 28 of 2010, after a tip-off, police raided a building at Kalwalapara of the city's Mirpur-1 around 11:30am and arrested the 19 men.
Police also recovered six explosive-like substances, bomb making materials, around 200 “jihadi” books, a sack full of “anti-state” leaflets, a laptop and some foreign currencies.
Police then filed a case against them under Explosive Substances Act.