A Chittagong court yesterday sent senior Hefazat-e-Islam leader Mufti Izharul Islam Chowdhury to jail in a case filed over grenade blasts at his Lalkhan Bazar Madrasa that killed three students in 2013.
Metropolitan Magistrate Abdul Quader passed the order when Izhar was produced before the court, said CMP Detective Branch’s Additional Deputy Commissioner SM Tanvir Arafat.
Police did not submit any remand petition as decided earlier.
Izhar, 70, the ameer of an Islami Oikya Jote faction and also the chairman of a Nezam-e-Islam faction was arrested on Friday by the DB police after two years of hiding. He was facing arrest warrants in three cases filed over the blast that took place on October 7, 2013.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police on Friday also formed a 10-member committee to interrogate Izhar to know whether he had any connection with the recent killing of bloggers, and any local or international militant group.
He was supposed to be placed at the court with a 10-day remand prayer, CMP DB officials had said.
Sources said the detectives on Friday night scrutinised Izhar’s case records and found that he had no other cases than the three. So they decided not to interrogate him.
Izhar’s Jamiyatul Ulum Al Islamia Madrasa has long been known as a den of Islamist militant outfit Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh (HujiB), banned in 2005. Izhar played a significant role in spreading the network of the radical outfit across the country since early 1990s with the ultimate goal of launching a jihad.
Sources said Izhar had very close links with Osama Bin Laden of al-Qaeda and Mullah Omar of Taliban. He travelled to Afghanistan on several occasions and met Laden, Omar and many other Taliban leaders, as described in different publications circulated within the Huji network.
After the 2013 blasts, the law enforcers recovered hand grenades, grenade-making materials and 18 bottles of picric acid used to amplify the magnitude of explosions.
Izhar, his son Harun Izhar and seven others were indicted last year in the three cases filed with Khulshi police. Izhar first secured bail last year for eight weeks, but did not surrendered after the term expired.
Sources said that he had been hiding in a madrasa in the city’s Bakalia area. Locals said that Izhar had been leading the Jum’a prayers at Lalkhan Bazar Madrasa mosque for the past few months.
Police’s elite force Rapid Action Battalion arrested him in December 2010 in connection with two criminal cases filed in Chittagong. Later the Criminal Investigation Department showed him arrested in a case to investigate his HujiB links.
