13 Jamaat men held in capital

Gulshan police on Monday night arrested 13 leaders and activists of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, including two women, from Dhaka's Shahjadpur area.

The arrestees are Hussain Bin Mansur, Mufti Rahmatullah Bin Tofazzal Hossain, his wife Jesmin Akter, AKM Abdus Salam, Abdullah Al Mahfuz, Saimum Jami, Hafizur Rahman, Anjum Bin Kamal, Nur Mohamad Monir, Salahuddin Sabbir, Abdur Nur, Nasir Uddin, and Sahera Akter.

Police claimed that the Jamaat members were holding a meeting to plan subversive activities while their lawyer said they were performing Isha prayer when police detained them.

A Dhaka Court yesterday granted one-day remand for each after sub-inspector Ohidul Islam of Gulshan Police Station produced them before it with a seven-day remand prayer.

In the remand prayer, the SI mentioned that they carried out the drive and arrested them from the office of Rahmatullah and Mansur and recovered eight crude bombs and some organisational leaflets and literature.

The SI also stated that they came to know that the arrestees stored the explosives there with a plan to carry out subversive activities to damage public properties and tarnish the image of the government.

Abdur Razzak, a lawyer of the accused, opposed the remand prayer, saying the arrestees neither stored the crude bombs nor were they planning any subversive activities there.

They were performing Isha and Tarabih prayer when police picked them up, he told the court.

On March 20, the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police arrested 54 leaders and activists of BNP's Munshiganj unit from Banani Club and claimed that they were planning to hold anti-government activities.

However, BNP said the leaders and activists went there to attend a social programme followed by a dinner being invited by a leader who was supposed to leave the country to perform umrah in Saudi Arabia.