Police detained 17 leaders and activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir Saturday, raiding a seven-storey building in the capital’s Meer Hajir Bagh area of Shyampur.
They seized various publications from the possession of the Shibir men who lived on different floors of the mess building.
“Acting on a tip-off, we conducted a two-hour long raid on the seven-storey building around 5pm and picked up 17 Shibir men aged between 20 and 25 years. The entire building has been used as a mess for Shibir activists for several years,” said Abdur Rashid, officer-in-charge of Shyampur police station.
The OC said more than 200 leaders and activists of the student body of Jamaat-e-Islami live in the mess, “but most of them had fled sensing our presence.”
The owner of the building also went into hiding after the raid, the OC told the Dhaka Tribune.
Ilias Sharif, deputy commissioner of Wari division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said they had information that many Shibir activists, who were accused and suspects in a number of cases related to recent violence, had been living in the mess. “The detainees have been taken in custody of Shyampur police to see if they were involved in any conspiracy or subversive acts,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.