The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested Abdul Matin, 70, convicted and sentenced to death in absentia for his crimes against humanity committed during the War of Liberation, from Golapganj upazila in Sylhet.
"Acting on a tip-off, a team of RAB-3 arrested Matin from his nephew's home in Golapganj on Sunday night," RAB-3 Commanding Officer Lt Col Arif Mohiuddin Ahmed told BSS.
Matin along with his brother Md Abdul Aziz alias Habul, and Md Abdul Mannan alias Monai was convicted and sentenced to death for crimes against humanity including genocide, murder, rape, and torture in Moulvibazar in 1971.
Matin, who was an activist of Jamaat-e-Islami, however, fled to India with his brother Habul as the war began and received training to become a freedom fighter at the first phase of the War of Liberation.
Thereafter, both of them fled the training camp and came back to Bangladesh, and surrendered to the Pakistani occupation army at their camp Baralekha upazila of Moulavibazar. They subsequently joined the Razakar Bahini and committed the crimes.
The investigation agency of the International Crimes Tribunal launched its probe against Matin, Abdul Aziz, and Abdul Mannan on October 16, 2014, and ended on November 14, 2016.
The ICT on February 29, 2016, issued an arrest warrant against them. Police on March 1, 2022, arrested Abdul Aziz and Abdul Mannan, but Matin remained at large and was tried in absentia.
They were convicted and sentenced to death by the ICT-1 on May 19, 2022.
RAB officials said Abdul Matin left his ancestral home in Moulvibazar right after the arrest warrant was issued against him in 2016. He took shelter in his nephew's home in Golapganj, posing as a freedom fighter.
