Seven Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militants surrendered at Gangachara Police Station in Rangpur yesterday morning. Meanwhile, charges were framed against a JMB militant while Shaekh Abdur Rahman and Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai were acquitted in connection with a case filed for the bomb blasts in August 17, 2005 in Kishoreganj.Police later showed the seven surrendered militants arrested under section 54 before a magistrate's court in Rangpur. The arrestees were sent to Rangpur Central Jail yesterday afternoon. The JMB militants are Azizul Islam, 22, Azaharul Islam, 22, Johurul Islam, 23, Abdul Baten, 20, and Foyjul Islam, 19, of Kuribishwa under Kolkond union and Ashiqul Islam, 24, and Ibrahim Khalil, 27 of Boraibari under Alambiditor union.
Sources said the guardians of the JMB men accompanied them to Gangachara Police Station around 9:00am along with union parishad chairmen of their area.
| The OC told The Daily Star that they confessed to their earlier involvement with Islami Chhatra Shibir and Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. |
Quoting statements of the JMB men he said Shafiqul Islam, a teacher of a registered non-government primary school at Changmari, had persuaded them to joining JMB with the aim to establish Islamic rule in the country. Realising their error, the JMB men surrendered to police, as they wanted to lead normal lives, Rashid said quoting the militants. The OC said, "We are looking for allegations filed against them with any police station in the country."
CHARGE FRAMED AGAINST JMB CADRE
Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) Mijanur Rahman submitted the charge sheet against JMB cadre Obaidullah Sumon before the Third Additional Sessions Judge's Court in Kishoreganj in connection with the six blasts in Kishoreganj on August 17, 2005. In the charge sheet, JMB chief Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai were mentioned as planners of the attacks but acquitted as they were executed, our Kishoreganj correspondent reports. Sumon was arrested in possession of explosive gel, detonator and explosives at a mosque of Gurui in Nikli upazila in Kishoreganj on September 22, 2005. He is serving a 17-year imprisonment in Kishoreganj Central Jail in an explosives case.