Home ›› 21 Nov 2022 ›› Governance
The government has issued a red alert at all the entry and exit points of Bangladesh to aid in the arrest of two Ansar al-Islam members who had escaped from the Dhaka court premises subduing their guards with chemical spray on Sunday.
Police said accomplices of Md Abu Siddique Sohel and Moinul Hasan Shamim – both convicted in Jagriti Prokashani’s publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan murder case and one in blogger Avijit murder case – snatched them away from the court premises.
The two, members of banned Islamist outfit Ansar al-Islam, were being taken to jail after their appearance before Dhaka court in an anti-terrorism case.
Md Faruk Hossain, deputy commissioner (media) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said when police were bringing the convicts out of the court, four people on two motorbikes came in and attacked the police personnel. They blinded the police personnel by spraying chemicals on their faces and fled immediately along with the two convicts, who have multiple aliases, he added.
Faruk said Constable Md Noor A Azad, 39, sustained injuries in his eyes from the chemical spray and he is undergoing treatment at the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the government has issued a red alert to arrest the two convicted militants and pledged a bounty of Tk 20 lakh for any information leading to their arrest.
“Police are looking for them everywhere. I hope, we will be able to arrest them soon. We have asked the law enforcement agencies to beef up their surveillance at the border areas so that they cannot leave the country,” the minister told journalists at his office.
Asaduzzaman said, “It is an unfortunate incident. We formed a probe body and take necessary steps so that such occurrences don’t happen again.”
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police, meanwhile, has formed a five-member committee headed by DMP’s Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime and Ops) to investigate the incident and asked it to submit the report in three working days. Other members are – DMP’s Joint Commissioner (Operations), Joint Commissioner (CTTC), DMP’s Deputy Commissioner (Lalbagh Division) and DMP’s Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (CRO).
Publisher Dipan, son of Prof Abul Kashem Fazlul Huq of Dhaka University, was hacked to death in his office on the second floor of Aziz Super Market at Shahbagh on October 31, 2015.
A case was filed with Shahbagh police station the following day and later the case was transferred to DB police. On November 15, 2019, police pressed charges against the eight Ansar-Al-Islam men in the case.
On February 10, 2021, the Dhaka Anti-Terrorism Tribunal sentenced eight militants, including Sohel and Shamim, to death.
In a similar incident, armed members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh ambushed a prison van and snatched away three of their fellows in Trishal of Mymensingh on February 23, 2015. A police constable was killed as the attackers opened fire and hurled crude bombs at the prison van.
Ansar al-Islam, a banned militant group which the government dubs homegrown militants, grabbed headlines when its members were accused of hacking to death several secular bloggers, atheist writers and LGBT activists.
Bangladesh has since launched a nationwide crackdown against Islamist militants, outlawing half a dozen groups, killing more than a hundred militants in raids and arresting hundreds of suspected extremists.
Bangladesh has not witnessed a major terror attack since 2016 when a group of militants hacked and shot to death 22 people – nearly all foreigners – at Holey Artisan restaurant in Dhaka.
