The Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has reported of getting a hit list containing names of 12 eminent people, including three ministers, prepared by a radical Islamist group called ‘Ansar Ullah Bangla Team’.
The hit list include Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, former home minister and Telecommunication Minister Advocate Shahara Khatun, minister without portfolio Surunjit Sen Gupta, educationalist Dr Jafar Iqbal, Shahriar Kabir, self-exiled poet Daud Haider, blogger Asif Mohiuddin and late blogger Rajib Haider who was killed in February 15 in Pallabi.
A senior detective officer, requesting anonymity, told UNB on Wednesday that the radical Islamist group made the list to kill the 12 people at any cost.
Acting on a tip off, the detectives unearthed the hit list after raiding the den of the radical Islamist group at Basila under Mohammadpur police station in the capital on Tuesday noon. They also recovered huge Islamist books and documents.
Earlier, on Monday, Barguna district police arrested Mufti Jasimuddin Rahmani, founder of the ‘Ansar Ullah Bangla Team’, along with 30 of his followers from a house at South Khajurtola.
Detectives said Jasimuddin Rahmani, said to be a follower of slain US-born Yemeni origin Anwar Al-Awalaki, a ‘spiritual leader’ of Al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula, has been carrying out his activities in Bangladesh for the last 4-5 years. Anwar Al-Awalaki was killed in Yemen in an American drone attack on September 30, 2011.
According to the list, they slashed blogger Rajib Haider to death near his Palashnagar of Pallabi residence on February 15. They also attempted to kill blogger Asif Mohiuddin but he luckily survived, he said.
Detained Mufti Jasimuddin Rahmani along with his 30 followers are now in Barguna jail. He will be shown arrested in the blogger Rajib Haider murder case as well as attempt-to-murder case of blogger Asif Mohiuddn, the DB officer said.
Meanwhile, plainclothes police arrested a BBA student of North South University, Salman Yasir Mahmnud, from North Road at city’s Dhanmondi on Wednesday afternoon in connection with Rajib Haider’s murder case.
Yasir was also said to be a member of the Ansar Ullah Bangla Team.
