Govt to bring back 'Boma' Mizan from India in time
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday said the government would bring back militant leader Jahidul Islam Mizan alias "Boma" Mizan from India.
“We have an extradition treaty with India. Prisoners whom we want to bring back and they [India] want to take back are already being swapped. We will also bring him [Mizan] back in time,” he told the media at his Monipuripara residence in the capital.
Fellow militants snatched "Boma" Mizan, a top bomb expert and leader of mainstream Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), from a prison van in Mymensingh four years ago. He was arrested at Ramanagara near Bengaluru on Monday.
Bangladesh counterterrorism officials believe the arrest of Mizan would help them get details about JMB's strength, members and blueprints. They are also hopeful about solving a number of militant-related cases, including the one filed for the attack on the prison van.
In 2014, an armed gang ambushed the prison van and snatched Mizan and two other dreaded JMB militants Salauddin Ahmed alias Salehin and Rakib Hasan Russell alias Hafez Mahmud.
Since then, Mizan, and Salehin, now the chief of mainstream JMB, had been hiding in India, according to Bangladesh law enforcers. Hafez Mahmud was arrested and killed in a “gunfight” with law enforcers within five hours of the incident.
Mizan, who according to the National Investigation Agency is the top leader of JMB in India, is wanted in the Burdwan blast case in West Bengal. He is also the mastermind of the Bodh Gaya blast in January 19 this year, NID said.
After years of hunt for him, the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) on May 14 in 2009 captured "Boma" Mizan, at Taltola in the city's Mirpur area. He joined JMB as a full-timer in 2001 and had close relations with executed militant kingpins Shaekh Abdur Rahman and Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai.
In Bangladesh, he has been sentenced to different terms in prison, including for life, on various charges.
Our New Delhi correspondent adds: In initial interrogation by the NIA, "Boma" Mizan revealed that the group led by him had planned to cause IEDs explosion at Bodh Gaya to “avenge the atrocities on Rohingyas in Myanmar”.
He also said Mizan had been residing in Bengaluru since 2014 at different places on rent and was selling clothes as a hawker to conceal his identity.
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