Attempt to kill Hasina in 2000: Fugitive death row convict arrested

Police arrested a fugitive death row convict in a case filed for attempting to kill Sheikh Hasina -- by planting bomb in Gopalganj -- in 2000.  

A team of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit arrested Azizul Haque alias Shahnewaz alias Ruman from Dhaka's Khilkhet area yesterday, CTTC chief Asaduzzaman told a press briefing at DMP media centre today.

On March 23 last year, a Dhaka tribunal sentenced Azizul and 13 members of the banned militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji) to death and ordered that they be "publicly" executed by the firing squad.

The militants planted bombs on the premises of Sheikh Lutfor Rahman Ideal College and nearby helipad in Kotalipara where Hasina was supposed to address a rally on July 22, 2000.

A sedition case was filed against them for trying to kill Sheikh Hasina, by planting the 76kg bomb which was found on July 21.

Two days later, another 40kg bomb was recovered from the college premises.

In today's briefing, Asaduzzaman, also an additional commissioner of DMP, said Azizul was a close aid of Mufti Hannan and was tasked with planting the bombs.

He fled to Dhaka from Gopalganj after recovery of the bombs.

He had been in hiding for 21 years under various disguises, assuming fake names, and carried out militant activities in secret, the police officer said.

Azizul joined militant group Huji through his teacher, a close aid of Mufti Hannan, while he was studying in a madrasa in Gazipur in 1987.

Hannan was hanged on April 12, 2017 at Kashimpur High-Security Prison for killing three people and injuring the then British high commissioner in Bangladesh and a dozen others in Sylhet.