Bangladesh acting tough against anti-India militants operating from its soil

Dhaka, July 21 (ANI): Bangladesh has started taking tough measures against militants operating from its soil and the recent arrests of Indian origin Lashkar-e-Toiba militants proves Dhaka's resolve not to allow its soil to be used for launching anti-India operations.

India has time and again raised concern over terrorism emanating from Bangladesh. Last week, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed went on record as saying that she would not allow the soil of her country to be used for terrorism inside India.

This statement followed a complaint from the Indian side that Pakistan was interfering in Assam and other north-eastern states of India while using Bangladesh as a corridor. The actions show that Dhaka has launched a "successful" campaign against militancy and wants to show the world that it "never" supported terror acts.

The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had pressed his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina on the sidelines of the 15th NAM Summit to act against insurgents operating out of her country.

The recent action by Bangladesh against militant outfits like ULFA, NDFB, ATTF, NLFT, PLA, PREPAK, besides the new zeal shown by Dhaka to nab the main players and conspirators behind the Chittagong arms haul has pleased New Delhi.

Top ULFA leaders like Paresh Baruah and chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa are reported to be on the run and may have shifted base to China, while huge funds lying in various banks in Bangladesh may have been frozen on orders from Dhaka.

The Detective Branch of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, arrested Maulana Habibullah on Monday night after information provided by another arrested Indian militant, Mufti Obaidullah.

The police said that both the arrested militants are Indian nationals. Habibullah is known to be an arms and explosives expert of the LeT, while Obaidullah is an organiser, they added.

Obaidullah confessed his active links with LeT, and said the LeT has been financing HuJI operations in Bangladesh, even as he has been remanded to police custody.

An official familiar with the Obaidullah's interrogation said the LeT was financing the Bangladesh based Huji.

Bangladesh's elite anti-crime force arrested 44 top leaders and activists of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, amid fears that the banned Islamist militant organisation was trying to regroup, a news report said on Sunday.

According to an official of the anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), they have arrested a total of 44 leaders and cadres of JMB during last six months.

Moreover, the headquarters and its 12 battalions so far have arrested 475 JMB cadres in the country from 2005 to 2008, the report said.

In the first week of July, a top Bangladeshi militant commander Salim, who recently returned from India, was arrested from a frontier village.

Security forces in June arrested the JMB's IT wing chief Emranul Haque Rajib, a civil engineer, weeks after they netted the top explosive exert of the outfit, Jahedul Islam Sumon.

The JMB, one of several outlawed Islamist groups seeking to turn mostly Muslim Bangladesh into a sharia-based Islamic state, was blamed for a series of deadly bombings in late 2005.

Sheikh Hasina, who assumed office as Prime Minister in January 2009, after a landslide election win on December 29, 2008, has vowed to get tough with the militants. Security forces have since raided alleged militant hideouts, seizing arms and bomb making material and arresting dozens, as Dhaka doesn't want small irritants to spoil its relations with neighbours. (ANI)