Dhaka, April 29 (PTI): Four leaders of a hardline Islamist group have been arrested from different parts of Bangladesh, in connection to pending cases of violence, according to a media report on Thursday.
The four Hefazat-e-Islam leaders, who were arrested on Wednesday, are likely to be charged for instigating violence during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bangladesh visit last month and the violent demonstrations in 2013 when several other people were killed as the group demanded the enactment of a blasphemy law, the Dhaka Tribune reported.
Dozens of Hefazat leaders and activists have been arrested in recent weeks after the hardline Islamist group waged anti-government protests.
Maulana Abdul Qaium, member of Hefazat-e-Islam’s dissolved central committee, was arrested from a madrasa in northern Netrokona district on Wednesday, the newspaper reported.
Qaium is a key accused in the 2013 riots in Narayanganj, where the group demanded the enactment of the blasphemy law. An arrest warrant was pending against him in the case.
In Dhaka’s Demra area, Hefazat-e-Islam joint secretary Md Mufti Faisal Mahmud Habibi was arrested, in connection to violence in ShaplaChattar in the Bangladeshi capital in 2013.
Another Hefazat leader, Md Mufti Habibullah Mahmud Kashemi, was also arrested in the 2013 ShaplaChattar violence case. Kashemi was apprehended from Dhaka’s Vatara area on Wednesday evening.
Similarly, Hefazat leader Mufti Harun Izhar was arrested from a madrasa in Dhaka’s Lalkhan Bazar area on Wednesday night.
Izhar is wanted in 11 cases of violence. He has already served time in prison for an alleged grenade attack in Lalkhan Bazar Madrasa that left two students dead and several injured on October 7, 2013.