Author: Agencies/Dhaka
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 23, 2003
An islamic militant leader, arrested
along with more than a dozen others of an extremist group aiming to wage
an armed religious struggle in Bangladesh, has confessed that he received
arms training in Pakistan.
Maulana Abdur Rauf, one of the 18
extremists arrested from the house of a ruling bnp leader in Faridpur district
of Bangladesh two days ago, told police that he went to Karachi in 1988
and after receiving military training in Pakistan, including operation
of ak-47 rifles, fought the Soviet army in Afghanistan for three years.
Earlier, Rauf went to India in 1982
for education in Deoband in Uttar Pradesh, vernacular daily Janakantha
said quoting from his confession to police. The arrested, belonging to
little-known Islamic extremist group Tamir ul-Din, were teachers and students
of a Madrassa in Bhaluka in Myamensingh district. Before being rounded
up, the leaders of the group during a sermon at a local mosque called upon
the faithfuls to "wage arms struggle to establish Islam" and to "procure
arms". The police have seized two cassettes of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin
Laden and ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and covers of 500 audio
cassettes on jehad during a raid on the Madrassa, the Daily Star reported.
The recent arrests have raised the number of religious extremists arrested
in Bangladesh in the last fortnight to 45.
